The Sphinx and the Angel
by ChazlylButterworth
Summary: A lot has changed in the year after the closing of the Makishima case. Inspector Akane Tsunemori has taken charge of Division 1, and a new case is on the rise. A hacker, known as Sphinx, is victimising civilians that link to the 7 deadly sins. The question is, why? And is he/she working alone? Or in a cult? The major question being, can Akane figure it out on time? Kogami x Akane
1. Chapter 1

**Welcome to chapter 1! **

**[Adding_Oedipus_Wall_REY34….]**

**[Oedipus_Wall_REY34_added]**

**[Log_into_the_Ministry_of_Welfare_Public_Safety_Bureau]**

**[Logging_in…]**

**[Connected]**

**[Connect_to_CID]**

**[Connecting…]**

Her fingers hovered over the glowing keyboard, her breath hitched as she waited. The ash from the cigarette that hung from her mouth fell into the ashtray in her lap. She took a drag before tapping it again, replacing it between her lips again. The peaceful hum of her fridge and the pretty green and red glow from her laptop computer was the only sound and light in her apartment. She was alone. She was always alone.

Her computer bleeped, telling her that she was connected. She smirked to herself, everything was going the right way thus far. She hoped it continued that way.

**[Find_inmates_with_Crime_Coefficient_of_300]**

**[Searching…]**

**[Search_completed  
>Twenty_six_matches_found]<strong>

She smirked again, a knowing smirk that would be considered smug one. It seems that he was there. Possibly. No, he was there. He was just hiding from her.

**[Search_inmate]**

**[Inmate_number_B2BH762]**

**[Searching…]**

**[No_searches_found]**

She pursed her lips, frowning now. She bit the inside of her cheek before stubbing out her cigarette. She poured a glass of coke from her fridge, thinking. As she took a sip of the sugary substance, her brain started to zing. She smiled again, knowing what to do.

**[Search_inmate]**

**[Name_Laius_Knight]**

**[Searching…]**

**[Inmate_found]**

"You can't hide from me if you just leave me clues, you idiot." She mumbled, rolling her eyes. "Especially with that name." She saw the irony, and it made her feel superior.

**[Show_inmate_files]**

**[Sort_by_name]**

**[Laius_Knight]**

**[Select_all]**

"Now, let's see what makes you…tick, shall we?" She mumbled, lighting another cigarette. The smoke clouding her vision slightly as she read. It didn't however, cloud what she read. By the end of reading all seventeen different files under the name of, 'Laius Knight.' She understood what she needed to do.

"Judgement through purity…Purity from the innocent." She muttered.

She clicked on his mail timetable, smirking when she saw that she had only fourteen hours to do what she needed to do. Easy. But she needed to do it right, which was always the difficult part.

"I don't get paid enough…" She mumbled softly. Grabbing a piece of good paper beside her and her fountain pen. "Time to rumble." After grabbing a specific book off her shelf, she started the second phase of her job. Write this man a letter.

* * *

><p>It was a cold dusty morning. The clouds had gathered by the time she had arrived to the institute. It was roughly six in the morning. Her tired eyes looked hollow as she looked at herself in the reflection of her review mirror. They looked like they were still asleep, almost. Sleepy dust was still in her tear ducts, her eyebrows were still messy from her disturbed sleep against the pillow. She could even see her the indents in her face where the creases of the pillow had been. She gave her face a good rub. Waking herself up. She didn't care if she looked a mess. A dead body wouldn't mind, after all.<p>

She zipped her jacket, huddling herself for warmth as she left her car. It had been sleeting overnight, causing her to tread carefully as she made her way to the steps of the institute, being greeted by the also exhausted face of Ginoza. His hair was unbrushed, and his glasses had a smudge on one lens. All things considered, he looked a lot more fresh than she was feeling.

"You called me here, what's the situation?" She mumbled, her voice a lot more tired than she had anticipated.

Ginoza sighed deeply, "A dead body."

"I gathered," she said sarcastically, matching his tone. "I swear those glasses cause your attitude to go back to old Ginoza." She tried to smile, but her face refused. "Anyway, a more elaborate explanation would be appreciated."

"Fine," he said after yawning. They stepped through the doors of the Institute. The air turning bearable in temperature, meaning she could unzip her jacket at last.

"Laius Knight, a thirty year old former telesales assistant. Psycho-Pass being three hundred. He surrendered upon arrest, meaning he was taken here, not being shot with a Dominator." He sighed, "He was found this morning, or at least, his fluids were."

She stopped in her path, her eyes not widening in surprise. Rather in curiosity. She was intrigued. "So the Dominator got him after all, huh?" She turned slightly towards him, "That means someone shot him, surely that rules out everything but murder."

Ginoza sighed, "No, it doesn't."

She was puzzled. "How?"

"Security cameras show the victim deliberately gaining attention from staff, his Psycho-Pass sky rocketing. When a drone went by, it opened by itself, he grabbed a Dominator."

She widened her eyes, "Are you trying to tell me, that a civilian with a high crime coefficient shot himself with a Dominator?"

"It's suicide. A fluke suicide." Ginoza mumbled, unsure himself of the truth.

She didn't fully believe what she was hearing, turning back to where she was before, she walked the rest of the way to the scene of the crime in silence. A person with a high crime coefficient cannot fire a Dominator. It is impossible. The trigger will lock as they are not an authorised person to use the Dominator in the first place. Something was unsettling about what Ginoza told her. It made the fruit she stuffed down her throat that morning, curdle slightly in her stomach. She kept walking, trying to get rid of the feeling she had.

_It must be murder_, she thought. _Somehow, it must be_.

Ginoza followed her silently, his glasses reflecting the harsh lights of the institute so much so she could not see his eyes. She didn't know what he was thinking, but she could guess that he was just as confused as she was. Confusion was probably the only understandable thing about the entire morning so far.

She smelt the blood and burnt flesh before she saw it. Drones hovered around, and Sho was standing as far away as he possibly could from what she could only describe as a pile of wet, warm gloop. When she finally grasped a better look of it, she was surprised she hadn't thrown up the fruit in her stomach. It would've been the natural thing to do. But stopped midway, the bile still hot in her throat. She reminded herself, she had seen a lot worse. She had seen death happen, and witnessed the aftermath as well. She couldn't live with the idea of throwing up over a pile of red gloop.

She looked over to Sho, who wasn't looking at the gloop. In fact, he was looking anywhere but the gloop. She cleared her throat, he looked too her. The red mass of hair covering his eyes, almost making it impossible to see what he was thinking. "Is it confirmed DNA?"

"Yes," he mumbled. Saying nothing more.

She had gotten use to that, the lack of conversation in the past year. How things change. She sighed, "I need to see the camera footage. And speak to the staff in the institute." Sho nodded, walking off to follow her orders.

Ginoza stared at the mess of the floor, closing his eyes and smirking. "Well this is definitely something interesting, right?"

"I prefer mind-boggling." She replied, "It is interesting how on God's earth he killed himself with a Dominator. Did someone possibly toy with it?"

"There's no traces so far of tampering." Ginoza replied, his voice sounding like he had thought about it already. "If someone has, it'll show up on the next lot of tests."

She nodded and sighed, "Once we've talked to the staff, we'll go back to headquarters and go through the evidence we have. I have to write a report about this by tomorrow morning, and I have a feeling it'll be the smallest report in history."

"Of course, Tsunemori." Ginoza mumbled, his eyes not shifting from the mushed corpse that was sprawled across the floor in front of them.

* * *

><p>The sun was shining by the time 11 AM snuck along. People still looked tired as they went to early lunch breaks, or were coming back from night shifts. She watched from afar. A takeaway coffee in her hands, her jumper covering her hands to fend away from letting DNA get on it. She sipped the coffee through a straw, playing with the piece of plastic with her teeth as she surveyed the people around her. They looked so … boring. Their faces were glued to their electronic pads. It didn't take a genius to know that they were looked on the approved news sites to investigate the murder. It was big news. She had heard a voice over talk about it hours before on the 6 AM news.<p>

She had done it, but in a way, she didn't care.

She chewed on her straw, drones floated by her. Scanning her, leaving her. She wasn't insane. She was just complicated. But she knew how to keep her CC low. Deep breathes, and deep thought. Or at least, that is what she had always done. Thus-far, it has worked. She dangled her legs off the wall of the park, watching a child run past her - chasing a simple looking butterfly. She frowned a little, wondering why on earth the kid was so intrigued by such a boring looking butterfly.

Why is everyone so easily sucked into things? Where was the adventure?

She sighed, throwing her cup in the bin with her straw still placed in her mouth. She chewed on it whilst she looked around her, smirking. "Time for phase two."

She walked away from the feeble children, the straw still dangling from her mouth as she did. "Time to start the game properly, and have a little fun." She smiled to herself, her arms swaying by her side like a child. She giggled, suddenly having the feeling of excitement rush through her.

* * *

><p>Tsunemori was exhausted. Her body shaking from the sudden chill she had possessed from her body being overtired. She held onto the plastic cup that she was given, with its hot contents warming her hands but little else. Her bones almost creaked when she moved, stiffening due to stress and the lack of knowing. She was nervous. She only drank coffee when she was nervous. And here she was, drinking the cup loads of it. It wasn't even good coffee, which made the morning a lot worse.<p>

They had spoken to the thirty people working in the unit where Knight was positioned. Each one of them had very similar things to say. Knight was a quiet inmate, who read a lot of books and never said anything out of context. His Crime Coefficient never went above where it usually was, in fact, recently it had been differing between 300 to 250, showing signs of improvement. When Tsunemori asked if Knight was showing signs of depression or any cause of stress in the past few days, they drew up a blank. Saying he was acting like usual. Nothing out of character. Only when he called for help, and grabbed the Dominator did they see anything different.

Tsunemori stood by the institute's abandoned interviewing room window. It was always used for interviewing if an inmate were to die suspiciously. She had been there once before, six months ago. Nothing special, just a girl slitting her wrists until she bled out on the floor. It was procedure to ask everyone about them. What they were like. If it was indeed just suicide and nothing more.

She wasn't expecting to come back so quickly because of a murder/suicide. Whichever it may have been, it was causing a lot stress between herself and the workers of the institute. They shared the dreading feeling of the unknown. Not knowing what was going on, whether it was one thing or the other. She could understand their stress, as institute workers with access to the newest drone equipment, you always knew what was one thing or the other. As a detective, you always drew blanks before the real bullet showed.

She heard a door slide open behind her, she looked over her shoulder to see Ginoza with a woman beside him. She almost reached his height, though she was wearing high heels. Her hair was a luscious cornsilk colour, and her eyes were a bright green. With a beauty spot above her top lip, and the deep blood red lipstick she wore, you could consider her one of the more beautiful women Tsunemori had seen in her life. She would give Shion Karanomori a run for her money.

The woman walked over to Tsunemori and held out her hand. Under a small air shift, Tsunemori could smell her perfume. It smelt like sandalwood and lily of the valley. A mix with Tsunemori loved, but was too cautious to wear such a scent herself.

When she spoke, the woman sounded like a soothing mother. Something that made Tsunemori loosen a little, the creaking sound in her bones deplete. "Doctor Melody Sakurai, head of this section of the institute." Her voice had an accent, she quickly realised that the woman in front of her had an English tone to her voice. She wasn't born in Japan it seems.

"Pleasure," She began to reply. "Akane Tsunemori, head inspector from the M.W.P.S.B"

She nodded, "I am glad you all came as soon as we called. As you can tell, we are highly traumatised by this mornings experiences. It's something I haven't had to deal with in sometime. Years, in fact."

Years? This woman looked no older than thirty.

"It's okay, we're just as confused as yourself." Tsunemori said as she sat back down by the metal table that the institute lent them for the questioning. Sakurai also sat, lighting a cigarette whist she did.

"So tell me," she began. "Was Knight a ruthless inmate?"

"Hardly," she mumbled. "He was silent as a dead man. Read so many books that he had at least read all the books in our library twice. He liked to study. He said he never had the chance growing up. Education seemed to disapprove of his way of mind." She smiled tightly, "His therapy was rather wondrous to be a part of. He spoke in riddles and the answers as to how he was feeling would be in them. He liked to play, but he never was a problem."

"Play?" She questioned.

"He was a bored man. Though he came here under his own free will, I am sure you can understand how boring being locked up in a four walled room can be for a man his age. Men like him like to be in the fresh air. If I had the choice, I would let him outside for ten minutes a day whilst he read his books. He was nice like that. Understood that he couldn't go outside, so instead he never asked or complained." She took a long drag of her cigarette. "He drew a lot as well, gave the staff here a few of them."

"Paintings? Or just sketches?" Ginoza asked.

"Either or… depends how much he liked you." She smiled tightly again.

Tsunemori pursed her lips, "May we see them, the paintings and sketches?"

"Sure, I have one right here, actually." She mumbled, rummaging through her lab coat and receiving a black wallet. She rummaged through it, pulling out a small piece of paper that was folded. Unfolding it, she revealed a A4 sized piece of paper. She slid it across the table, Tsunemori noticed the red nail polish, matching her lips.

One thing was for certain, the man who was now gloop - could paint. Even with the most basic of materials. He could've sold them easily for several million yen. If not more. Double digits, easily. But the one question that nagged her was; why keep it in her wallet?

"May we keep it for now?" She asked, "you never know there may be a clue."

She raised a brow, that was beautifully curved and plucked. "Sure thing," she said, unsurety filling her voice.

Tsunemori carefully refolded the paper, putting it in her jacket pocket. "Go through what you know about the supposed suicide. Had Knight shown any signs of having suicidal thoughts?"

"No, not that I know of. I'm sure you'd know by now, his psycho pass was decreasing. Not going up like usual latent criminals who had ventured too far from being sane. He was getting better. Not worse."

Ginoza pursed his lips, "What about the Dominator? They do not let people shoot themselves, and they sure as hell don't let someone unauthorised shoot the gun to begin with."

She shrugged, "All I know is, he was causing a lot of hurt. He caused a member of staff to get stitches in his hand due to him biting him. He was insane again. Suddenly. All at once, terribly barbaric. It was a shock to us more than to you, I am sure." She sighed, "we got the Dominators out because he had a small blade. No idea where he got it from, I promise you. He just grabbed a Dominator, and before everyone knew it, he exploded into a pile of warm roasted gloop on the floor."

Tsunemori sighed, "So you're saying the drones just opened up to him?"

"Yes," She said calmly. She hadn't raised her voice once during the entire interview so far.

"Any idea how?" She asked, she was so tired.

"No idea. Personally I think it was a glitch. But I am doubtful, we check our drones weekly for any glitches. Last time we checked it, was the night before. So nothing could've happened, surely."

Ginoza sighed, "Do people come in to monitor the drones?"

"Yes, like with any company. Someone comes in to do the checks. It's a lot cheaper." She answered, her voice also tired.

"Anyone new come in, possibly?" He continued.

She searched her brain, and sighed. "I have no idea, I don't personally deal with that sort of thing. Go ask the head of security, he'd know I'm sure."

Tsunemori stood up suddenly and looked at the doctor. She was in no mood to be toyed with. She could tell that the doctor was getting tired of routine questioning. She was just going to get rattier and rattier. She wasn't going to be much help, and at this rate, they were just going to waste their time asking her.

"One last question." She said bluntly, "Why keep the painting in your wallet? Why not frame it, I mean, it is good enough to frame in my opinion."

She raised a brow, her eyes showing fatigue. "I like to keep gifts with me. Especially the ones that mean a lot to me. He gave me that painting after our first therapy session. He thanked me. I kept it, because he was so gracious. It warmed my heart a little, I'll be honest."

Tsunemori rolled her eyes, "no more questions, you can go." She walked out of the room, Ginoza followed her. She walked quietly for a few moments before she got to the main entrance. Her feet hurt, badly. Her new shoes were pinching her soles. "Get Yayoi to question security, and whilst she's at it to copy any security footage of the institute in the past week. I want her and Karanomori to survey it for any clues. If there are any, get them to inform me immediately. Understood?"

"Yes, inspector." He mumbled, "What's your verdict of Sakurai?"

"Either she is just overly fond of an recovering murderous inmate, or she is hiding something that I don't even want to think of, if I am honest with you." She gave him a look.

Ginoza smirked, "I'll let Yayoi know of your orders. Why don't you go home and rest for a few hours?"

"What's the point, I'll still be tired." She sighed, "no, I'd rather sleep properly tonight and get today over and done with." She walked through the entrance and waved to Ginoza. "I'll be at headquarters."

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

><p>Tougane met her in the offices of Division 1. He was making coffee when she entered, and did not look up. But as he passed her to go to his own desk, he put down a cup of coffee for her. She looked at him, questionably.<p>

"It is roasted Arabica beans. Best kind of coffee in my opinion. You do like coffee, right?" His voice was soft, like usual.

"I like coffee, yes. But only when I am nervous." She explained.

He raised a brow, "and are you?"

"Nervous? No." She sighed, "More like frustrated. Or at least, now I am just frustrated."

He smiled, "This case is frustrating, even I have to agree." He slouched slightly in his seat. Everyone today was showing some sign of fatigue. Early mornings caused for tired afternoons, and it had only just hit one thirty in the afternoon on her clock. "An insane man, using a Dominator who isn't authorised to do so is rather unheard of. Any deductions?"

"Only that something must've glitched in the system for him to do so. Though if that were the case, then it must've been planned. By the sounds of it, he seemed pretty sure of himself, knowing that the Dominator would work in the case of suicide that day. Which then brings the burning question into play, like the Queen on the chessboard as it were. How did the Dominator work? Did someone deliberately toy with it? Then who did if that is the case?" She swallowed some coffee, it tasted delicious. "But even so, if we did find the person, I doubt we could easily find him or her."

"Why not?" He asked, cupping his mug like. He was cold, she realised how cold the office was.

She looked to him, thinking for a moment before answering. "He or she likes to be unseen. I doubt any of the staff were the reason that the Dominator glitched. They all seemed to be honestly quite fond of him recovering. He was seemingly a liked person in that institute."

"Lucky man." He mumbled.

She smirked, "The person behind the glitch is well mastered in the art of hacking. Though so far, there is no sign of hacking in the system. Which is why they're like a ghost. They know a way to blend, right?"

"I am supposing the same thing. There is your usual hacker, like Yayoi, who could easily leave traces in her steed if she were to for instance rob a bank over the net. Yet this person is careful. Their IQ is most likely in the mid hundreds. If not more. I am guessing one of the highest IQs to pull off something so sinister and genius." He leant his head back, staring at the ceiling as he sipped onto his hot coffee.

Tsunemori raised a brow, curious. "Would that sort of thing be easily accessed? IQs?"

He shrugged, "Most likely. If of course, they're on the system. If you refer the person as a ghost after one probable… unconfirmed glitch, then this person is a careful person who probably doesn't like to be known. Therefore, i'd doubt their commitment to the society we so lovingly grasp too."

Tsunemori closed her eyes, "That's true enough. But we should check anyway. Narrowing down the most intelligent minds on the Sybil system is the best chance we have right now to find a target of a suspect."

"Do what you will." He mumbled, "But remember, this person is only a probably. He or she may not even exist."

She sighed deeply, gulping on the scolding coffee before rolling her chair closer to her desk. She logged on into the Sybil system, using the scanner to find any person with an IQ higher than one hundred and thirty. The list was made up of ten individuals. She saw a familiar name, next to it the words Diseased were printed in red capitals. Shogo Makishima. Another was apparent to be dead. Shinya Kogami. She fell sad for a moment, knowing he wasn't dead. But to the system he was.

Someone who helped the system so much was considered dead. The unfair resolve was almost painful. She closed her eyes, leaning into her chair and sighing. He was alive. She knew it. He couldn't die just yet, he had so much going for him that death was almost impossible. She knew he wouldn't die so easily. She sighed again, holding herself, the faint smell of cigarettes hit her nostrils. She had just last night burned one his old cigarettes. The brand being associated almost to him. She didn't smoke them, rather just let them make her smell like him. She needed to keep remembering him.

She looked back to the screen, knowing if he'd known she was moping due to him he'd make fun of her. Possibly relating back to when she had shot him with a Dominator the first time. If she had continued, the second time would've made an appearance in conversation.

She slid her chair back in, sipping the rest of her coffee before putting the mug to the side. She scrolled the list, ignoring the two names.

**Aika Arakaki - Female - IQ 140**

**Kaede Akiyama - Male - IQ 140**

**Nao Himura. - Male - IQ 155**

**Mitsuru Nakahara - Female - IQ 180 **

**Madoka Yamada. - Female - IQ 175**

**Aoi Wakahisa - Male - IQ 160**

**Haru Ueno. - Male - IQ 170**

**Kazuko Tanaka. - Female - IQ 175**

Tsunemori was shocked to see a female to be the smartest of the lot. When she clicked onto her profile, a small girl, roughly the same height as herself, was shown.

Mitsuru Nakahara. Female. Age: 26. Occupation: Medical Examiner. Height: 5,2. Weight: 7 stone 6 lbs (47.17 kg). Relationship status: Single.

Nakahara had large blue eyes that were icy. Her hair was bleached white. Naturally it was black. Her expression was cool in the photo. Bored. The only thing that disinclined her from the line up, was that she now lived in England with her son.

She was at a loss. The smartest would've been the best bet to start with. Yet she wasn't here to question. It made Akane nervous, to say the least. All of these people were smart enough to overpower the Sybil system. Yet none of them wish to do so. Why? Did they see no point? Did they overactive brains see something she did not?

What made them so special, yet so inactive?

"Tsunemori, Yayoi and Karanomori have searched the footage. You have to come and see this." Ginoza snapped her out of her daydream. She stood up, following him to Karanomori's lab. Her mind still distant.

What would Kogami do? She wondered, before entering the lab.

* * *

><p><strong>I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I tried my best to make it sound as well structured as the show is. I hope I did it a small amount of justice. Also just to mention, if this fits cover photo is Loke and Lucy from Fairy Tail, I apologise, for some reason my image manager isn't loading images and for some other reason always put that photo as the pics photo before I change it. <strong>

**Leave a review, and hopefully I will see you next time :) **


	2. Static words

**Welcome to chapter 2!**

The night before the suspected murder of Laius Knight, the Drones and Dominators were manually checked by hired help. The help were paid professionals who's IDs had been checked and cross checked with current people on the M.W.P.S.B's data base. None of them seemingly showed any signs of being out of place. According to Shion, they were doing exactly everything that they were supposed to do to the machinery. No add ons, and no takeaways. These people were the real deal.

Yayoi pointed to the data base's match, the three Drone technicians were shown on the screen in front of Tsunemori. Their identifications were pristine. Showing no signs of tampering, let alone being fake. Possibly these people were the real deal, but how did the Drone just break itself in a matter of hours? How did it manage to break at the exact moment that Laius Knight went to grab a Dominator?

How did the Sibyl System _not_ tell the difference?

Tsunemori sighed deeply, sitting in a chair and rubbing the corners of her eyes out of exhaustion. Her head was muzzy with thoughts. Sure enough, there had to be a way that the Drone was tampered with. There was no other way. If not manually, then there had to be a way that it was tampered via computer. But with no signs of a hacking, that theory was running dry itself. She rested the side of her head against her fist, looking up at the ceiling and biting the inside of her cheek in thought.

There are possibly other ways to find out if the system was impregnated at any point, right? She thought to herself, her eyes widening. _Like staff logins_.

"Yayoi! Do the people who work as Drone technicians have the access into logging on the Institutes private files?"

She blinked once, thinking before answering. "To an extent, I suppose that is the case. They are low personnel, meaning their ranking into gaining access in the system would be low, but not impossible."

Shion raised a perfect brow, "What are you two getting at?"

Tsunemori spun round and stared at Shion, "Can you please match up the times of personal log-ins into the Institutes data base to the Drone technicians names, please?"

"You think one of them did a sneaky inside job?" She asked, typing away with vigour.

"Possibly," Tsunemori mumbled. "If we can match the names of the technicians to the names of the people logging into the system, then we can possibly try and track what that person had been looking at, at that time. Therefore, that could lead to finding out who found a way into making a drone become a part of a homicide."

Shion pursed her lips as she lit a cigarette, "Well from what I can see, all three of the technicians were logged into the system at similar times. All of them were just looking at different repairs needed on the Drones."

_Could it just be a wall? Something we are not seeing? _

"Can you please see exactly what these people were looking at? Which documents?" Tsunemori said, sniffing the smoke of the cigarette. It fuelled her to move faster. Her brain to tick. He and Shion smoked the same brand… It was almost uncanny.

"Eh-let me… ah, here we go." Shion mumbled, "Neo Kakashi, he was looking at the different valves of the Drone a few hours before entering the premises." She scrolled the list, "He was also using it to order new equipment for such valves."

"What about the girl?" Tsunemori asked, her eyes fixated on the second screen.

"Rheya Tastski? It looks like she was double checking on how to correctly rebuild a Dominator…"

"Seems… coincidental?" Ginoza said, the first thing he had muttered since entering the room.

Tsunemori narrowed her eyes, "Bring up her profile."

Shion clicked onto her, her profile was on the screen in moments. Rheya had a seemingly clear record. She attended a private high-school, paid for by her parents. Two fathers, one was born in Britain, the other in Japan. Rheya was adopted by the pair when she was twelve. She quickly grasped Japanese and English easily. Apparently no difficulties even though neither were her first language. She was Ukrainian, by birth. Her IQ was off the charts. Which was the thing that Tsunemori caught onto.

"Wait, why isn't she on our list for people with the highest IQs?" Yayoi asked, agitated as she walked closer to the screen.

Shion sighed, "People have a choice in publicising their IQs. With that IQ though, it'll be interesting what she works like. Whether or not she sees the world separately than we do."

Ginoza narrowed his eyes, "How can she have such a high IQ and such a low Psycho-pass?"

Tsunemori thought for a moment; does intelligence truly define a Psycho-Pass? If so, is that why people like Makishima and Kogami fell through the hole of destruction so easily? Surely that couldn't be the case, after all, Makishima wasn't technically insane. Not by the Sibyl system's standards. Kogami however was. It made her wonder, truly. What defined insanity? Was she as sane as she was due to a low IQ? Or was she truly just very good at keeping it clear? What caused people to have high Psycho-Passes anyway? Stress? Rape? A death of a loved one?

What truly defines insanity?

She pondered for a moment, before switching her thoughts back to the case at hand. Mentally slapping herself for thinking of _him _inside of her work space. She had done that twice today, it was slipping. But she now had a hold of her emotions, so now she could move on and do her job to the fullest potential.

Tastski was obviously someone like Tsunemori. She was a smart individual who could properly look after her Psycho-Pass, keeping it clear so it would never bother another person around her. Going through possibly what she had gone through growing up; being an orphan, getting adopted, learning two different languages and then living a completely different society to what you were previously used too - it must've been trying.

She had learned to calm herself. Just like Tsunemori had.

"What else was Tastski looking up during the log in period?" She finally spoke again.

Shion looked through the many different files that Tastski had been looking at. She never once seemingly tried to look at ways to manipulate a Dominator. Even though there were none at all of that matter. It would've shown if she had tried finding something along those lines.

Everything looked clean. Very clean.

Tsunemori looked back to her profile, those eyes that were a deep forest green looked back at her. She was a pretty girl. Roughly the same age as Tsunemori. Taller though, by a few inches, and was apparently a lot curvier. But there was something disturbing about this girl. Something that made Akane continuously look back too her. She was… different.

"Was there something wrong with the Dominators?" She asked softly.

Shion nodded, "They were the older model, so it would make sense for Tastski to rebuild a model to make it modernised to the new Sibyl standards." She lit another cigarette.

"What if someone was using a wall?" Tsunemori mumbled. She was thinking out-loud. They all looked bewildered.

"A wall?" Yayoi said, addled. "Like a firewall? We would've seen those."

"Or would you?" Tsunemori turned the question rhetorical, "If you were the best hacker in the world, and could make a firewall that is much more advanced than most firewalls, surely you'd make it, right?" Yayoi hesitated, but nodded. "From the start, we've all known the likelihood of someone hacking into the system was at least seventy percent. We can't, therefore, ignore the very logical conclusion of someone being able to make something even the Sibyl System cannot see. Something no one can see. Only the person who had administered the wall in the first place." They all seemingly caught on, nodding in approval. "Why wouldn't you, after all? If you had the high intelligence, you would. If you had the balls, that is." She smirked, "These records are too clean, too unoriginal, they are too boring for someone who is a hacker. Someone who does this sort of thing for a living."

She walked across the office, stretching her legs slightly, thinking further. "Someone like this lusts for a good game. They like to find a likeminded person to play a game of net-like chess with. Virtual, where you do not see the opponent. You just see their moves." She spun round, thinking out loud. "Question being, how do we find the game to begin with?"

"Excuse me," Tougane entered the lab, his reading glasses falling off his nose slightly. He pushed them upwards, "Sorry for interrupting the train of thought, but I have another track to add to the line." He smirked at his own joke.

Ginoza raised a brow, "What exactly is that, Tougane?"

He looked back at Ginoza and smiled, then to Tsunemori. "The Institute have mail, so do the inmates who are staying there. It seems that roughly ten hours before the murder, Knight received a letter through the post." He held up a piece of paper that was in a plastic wallet. Pocketed as evidence.

Tsunemori bit a lip, "What does the letter say?"

Tougane cleared his throat, bringing the letter to his view once more before he started to read. "'Dear old friend, it has been so long. You have disappeared from us, we all miss you here. You remember our number right? Give us a call whenever you feel the need. I'll put all out numbers in the letter, so you can get in touch again. I hope you are well, give us a call. Love, C.'"

Yayoi raised a brow, "And the numbers?"

He said the numbers slowly, physically putting hyphens between them when needed. "231-771-210….104-130-777."

Tsunemori took the letter carefully from Tougane's hands, reading it through again by herself. The numbers were written so carefully. As if they desperately wanted him to see those numbers clearly, with no trouble at all. The handwriting itself was wondrous, making her jealous as she read it. It was so smooth, so pristine.

Too pristine.

There was blood on the paper, Knight's blood. He had thrown the letter at one of the staff before shooting himself, apparently. Meaning only the spattering of his own fluids hit the paper, instead of completely drowning it.

Was he trying to give the letter to the staff to protect it? Or because it was the true reason behind him killing himself?

She sniffed the paper, it smelt like very rich paper. She could smell the cotton. It was professional paper, the kind that was imported for formal letters. It was expensive. But there was another smell lightly wafting through her senses. Biting her lip, she tried to place it. Apart from the smell of iron, she could smell something soothing.

It was something familiar.

Ginoza took the letter and sniffed it lightly, "Lemon Balm?"

"Yes… possibly." She replied, taking the letter back and biting the inside of her lip. "The numbers, Shion, are there any sequences?"

"Maybe," She said, scanning the numbers through the system. She rubbed the back of her neck and eyed Yayoi who smiled lightly and nodded. Tsunemori knew they were lovers, they would always hint at each other whether or not they'd see each other than night with a simple look. A look that Tsunemori had grasped onto. "Number sequences are a tricky business. Usually because they are an infinite sequence. There are a million in one ways that these numbers can be matched, crossed match, muddled and connected. It may take a while." She eyed Tsunemori, "I'll let you all know when I've found something, if at all."

Akane stood, her feet were sore. She was counting the hours down until she could go home, honestly, she was begging for a hot bubble bath. Stretching slightly on the spot, she decided to go back to the office and try and decipher the letter and numbers herself. It may take less time if more than a computer was trying to decrypt it.

Back at the office, Tougane made her another coffee. Ginoza was reading books whilst matching up paper types on the net. Apparently the paper was rare. It could help them narrow down the suspects if they knew who had brought them, and from where.

Tsunemori on the other hand, held the letter tightly in her hands. The plastic from the evidence bag making a squeaking noise. Her eyes scanned the numbers hundreds of times. They were too long to be mobile, home phone numbers and modern day fax machines would only need identification and you to say whom you want to send the fax too. The numbers were probably something, but were likely to be nothing. The possibly and the impossibility collided with each other. Like always when you were investigating a murder, things just never went your way.

She slid the letter on her desk, eyeing the computer screen before opening up the file Shion sent her. The CCTV footage. She plugged in headphones, popping on in her ear and listening. The usual clanging and tin sounds came from the footage from the Drone maintenance. Someone popped on a drill, connecting something that was familiar to the Drone before moving on to another task. She knew deep down she may not see anything. If this suspect did not want her to see them, she would not see them. It was as simple as that. She just had to plainly hope that the suspect was someone who desired a game.

She watched another few hours of the CCTV footage. Nothing new came up, only that the Drone technicians were efficient and professional. Not once did she they show signs in slacking off. Akane almost wished they did, it would've given her something to write down on her note pad. Which was blank from words, but had several half-assed doodles around the edges from boredom. She tapped her pen, watching as the footage kept rolling. She was about to give in, quite honestly just give up for the day and go home. She would eat some chocolate and watch a bad romance film. She then would sleep for a few hours before going for a job in the morning.

Anything was better than this.

Something suddenly caught her eye. Her eyes flicked upwards to the top of the screen, where something flickered. It was like static, but in one prone area and for only a couple of seconds - if that. She tapped back on the footage, watching it again. Re-watching it several times before, she realised that the footage had been tampered with. All along, something had been wrong with what she had been seeing.

They were just waiting for someone to pay attention.

She used the editing system, quickly cropping the few seconds of footage and making it into its own file. She sipped a cold sip of coffee, the buzz going straight to her brain. She zoomed into the footage, she zoomed to the highest number the system could do. She saved it to the system, trying to make out roughly what the letters were.

She put a sheet of her note pad to the screen, tracing the letters with a pen. Following it perfectly. It was quick to assume, that the letter were not Japanese. They were something that could be compared to English, but they had what Akane understood to be accents. They were completely foreign to her.

She tried to clear up the letters, separating them and increasing the size. Soon she had what appeared to be one word. In a language she didn't understand.

Tougane slid over on his chair, he had spotted that she had found something. He peeped over her should and narrowed his eyes slightly. He knew the language, but why would it be that word? He pondered lightly, before muttering to Tsunemori. "Pride."

She jumped, spinning her chair around to him. "Excuse me?"

"That word." He repeated, "Means _pride_ in Romanian."

She stared for a moment, processing it. Tougane knew Romanian? Pride? What did that word mean in this context? Who had pride? And why did it matter? "I don't understand this message at all…"

"_Mândrie_… Why would he use a Romanian word? Why not put it in Japanese?" Ginoza interrupted.

Tougane put a finger to his lip, thinking. "Romania is made up of its own language, Romanian. But the country itself, I believe, has many different languages piled into its foreign walls." He tapped his lip while he talked, "Hungarian being the largest minority language. Then there is; Romani, Ukrainian, German, Russian and Turkish. Albeit, the likelihood that anyone in Romanian who speak these minority languages can understand Romanian, is a high possibility." He shrugged, "Plainly, maybe these people are just enjoying the fact they know a word in Romanian. Or maybe it is something else that we're not seeing yet."

Yayoi who had come in mid way of the conversation raised a brow, "Rheya Tastski originally came from Ukraine."

"Yes, but I think she would've used Ukrainian. Most blood bound Ukrainians use their languages a lot more than others. It is safer that way." Tougane said softly in reply. "If after all you were implying she might've put the message there."

Tsunemori tapped her head out of fatigue. Her head was hurting, its fogginess was becoming far too large to ignore. She would've taken pain killers, if she had some. She would have to wait it out…

Sickness… Laius Knight was a sick man.

_Click-click_, her mind made the noise in her head. Signifying that she had caught onto something once again. She spun in her chair, pulling herself to the desk and clicking onto the name search on the Sibyl System. She typed, '_Laius Knight_' quickly into the search engine. Seconds passed, and his profile was in front of her. She skimmed the pages until she found what she was looking for. "Bingo," She whispered. "They knew each other."

"What?" Ginoza said, surprised.

She showed them the screen, "'_Laius Knight was born in Romania in 2077, he was apart of an anonymous hacking group in 2099 where they would take money from rich individuals and plant the money in poorer individuals for free. The group itself is said to have changed name and occupation, apparently that being the reason Knight left in 2101._'" She sighed, "Though it shows that we have a motive of sorts, unfortunately Sibyl does not know the previous name of the hacking group… nor the new one."

"So… we are chasing ghosts?" Tougane smiled.

"So far, we are indeed chasing ghosts - but of a virtual kind."

* * *

><p>She awoke suddenly in her bed. Sweat dripping profusely down her temple. She sat up, her bed creaking slightly under the weight change. She was still disorientated from what she had witnessed. What seemed to be the only thing she would witness lately in the land of dreams.<p>

She had dreamt of him again. Those stone cold eyes that would occasionally glimmer under their storm like blue stare. They would stare at her in her dream, him holding her as he walked away from the wreckage of the truck. He looked worried, and for a moment she would always think that this time he'd stay with her. Come back to her with Makishima in his grasp, alive. But that never came. This was a nightmare after all. Nothing good came from them.

He would put her on the side of the road, in her dream she felt his hand caress her cheek for a moment. His thumb skimming over the wound on her face, his eyes shining with fury. She would reach for him, her hand battered and bruised from the crash. Her voice would be weak so pathetic it would remind her of a lost and vulnerable puppy. No wonder he did not listen to her when she begged him not to go after him. To stay.

It was her fault. She wasn't strong enough back then.

Sometimes, in her dream. He would kiss her cheek. Out of longing to be touched by him, the longing to have something like that to remember him by. Something other than buying packets of cigarettes, his brand and burning them religiously in her apartment. The smell soothed her. His smell. But all the same, a kiss would have been a lot healthier.

She knew, in a way, if it weren't Makishima he was after - he would've. Back then, probably even now. She wasn't enough for him. Maybe now she would be. They could have been lovers. She would've accepted that. Enjoyed that.

If it was him making love to her, she would never have minded.

Her mother had been calling her frequently over the passed year. Asking if she had a partner, whether or not she was ready to settle down. "Try to find a boyfriend," she would say. "You're pretty enough for one." She would joke. "After all, I'm married and look at me." Again another pitiful joke.

Akane wasn't sure if she loved Kogami. Or whether it was that scalding hot 'what if?' question that would pound her head as she slept. What if she did fall for him, and he didn't kill Makishima. Would they be together? Or would they just occasionally fuck and then act like nothing has happened. Would he be her dirty secret from the past when she finally met a man good enough to be her husband? Would he be her lover whilst married, knowingly looking at her when she would bring a blue eyed child to work on themed dates on the calendar, or when they bumped into each other in the street?

The fact was, Akane did not know what Kogami was to her. A lover without the sex? A psychological lover? No, that sounded psychopathic. No… Kogami was something to her, unfortunately, she didn't know the right word for it yet.

She wasn't going to get anymore sleep tonight. Her head ached as she moved to the bathroom, turning the room settings of her apartment to look like a nice cosy cottage. She lit a cigarette, placing it in the ashtray, letting it burn and waft the smell through her apartment. She turned the shower on, stripping off her underwear before getting in.

In the shower, she thought longer than it took to clean herself. Once she had rinsed the conditioner from her hair, she found herself just staring off. He was still on her mind, like always. He was always there, even if she didn't want him to be.

Her mind wandered back to what her mother had been trying to say to her a while back. "Go on vacation, honey. You've been working non-stop for a year now. When we last face called, you looked so tired. You've aged, you look twenty-four instead of twenty-one - nearly twenty-two… Please promise me, if you can go on vacation before Christmas, you will. Remember, you're here for the twenty-fifth okay?"

Her mother was right, Akane needed to have a vacation. Technically, she had eighty holiday days left. She hadn't used any of them. She didn't plan too at least until this case was closed. She couldn't go until then, right?

She couldn't go anywhere until she finds where Kogami is. Until he decides to find her again. That was her promise.

She put her hand to the cold wall of her shower, tears streaming from her eyes. Her gut hurting. "Kogami… Where are you?" She whimpered as she fell to her knees crying.

* * *

><p><strong>Hello! I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I sure enjoyed writing this one. I used some of the stuff I learned from World Development last year into <strong>**play here. It seems the class taught me something, I think. And so has the TV show, _Perception _which I recommend if you like really good cop shows with a nice little twist. I hope the scene at the end was to your liking, it is semi-foreshadowing I suppose. And I hope the whole finding the clues seemed realistic. Leave a review, and I will see you next time. See ya!**


	3. Through innocent eyes

**Welcome to chapter 3. WARNING: This chapter contains scenes of a violent nature, sexual assault, under age exploitation and abuse. This chapter will also flag a trigger warning. So please, if you are sensitive to any of these warnings, do not read this chapter. I hope you enjoy.**

There was a call an hour after Tsunemori had gotten out of the shower. Ginoza was on the other end, explaining that it seems that they now have two hackers on the line. The one who is dangerous, and the one they would've met eventually due to questioning.

She had called herself 'Locus' over the net. She was nationally famous for sending the M.W.P.S.B correct documentation that sent a lot of people to the institute for murders, or they ended up as gloop for the same reasons. Tsunemori had heard about, 'Locus'. She was clever, she knew that much. She wasn't doing this for the thrill of it. She was doing it because she felt like she had to. Sometimes she saw the M.W.P.S.B suffering, not able to move on from a case due to a clue or something along those lines. She would help, and up until now she had been untraceable.

Tsunemori read the short file that, 'Locus' had sent them. It did not shock her that she was who she was. After all, her IQ was off the charts. But the thing that shocked Tsunemori most, is why she had suddenly come out of the dark corner she had been hiding in for years now.

The file contained her identification, and proof that she was that person. She had also written a letter, containing an apology for keeping her identity a secret for so long. But she was shy to come out and interact with Division 1 and the rest of M.W.P.S.B due to her way of thinking. Also, she didn't like being around people she didn't know for too long. It made her feel paranoid and full of anxiety. She explained why she was suddenly coming out as well. That she was who she was. "I want to help with this case, because a hacker can always find a hacker." She wrote. Simple enough, Tsunemori supposed.

Rheya Tastski was studying Criminology at Hongou Higher Education, the same place that Akane had been to nearly three years prior. She also studied Psychology, though Criminology was her major. She worked as a Drone technician to save money for her books and other equipment. It was a great way, she explained, to learn about computers and how things worked.

Of course, the pounding question was thrown across Division 1. What if Rheya was the hacker who sent the message? What if she was indeed lying? Tsunemori understood their concern, but in turn, she saw no doubt in what Rheya was trying to achieve. She promised the higher office though, that she would keep an eye on her.

Tsunemori arrived at Hongou with Ginoza at 9 AM. She hadn't eaten, and the smell of familiar cafeteria food made her stomach clench and rumble. She made a mental note to bring snack bars with her at all times.

Inside the school, she found nothing to have changed. Everything was as it was before. The same shining white floors and cream walls, the same gleaming windows and the same delicious smelling food. Fried food sounded wonderful at that time, luckily, they were serving breakfast. She asked Ginoza if he wanted anything, he smiled and replied that a bagel and coffee would be appreciated.

She felt like a student again, being greeted by the same staff as before. Who served her a fried breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs and syrup. She paid for both her and Ginoza's food, carrying the tray swiftly to the table they chose by a window. Tsunemori felt a lot better than she had this morning, memories from a happier time clouded the depressing ones. And fried foods always made her feel better. Even if it was just a little.

Ginoza poured the coffee from the cafetiere, adding milk to both the coffees. Adding no sugar to his own. Tsunemori added three sugars to hers. He ate his breakfast bagel peacefully, acknowledging to Akane that it was one of the best ones he had ever eaten. Meanwhile she was mid-bite of a large mouthful of pancake and egg. She smiled as he gave that humoured smile he gave occasionally. For a moment, they both felt normal. Like they weren't police trying to find a hacker who could well be a murderer.

Ginoza took off his glasses, putting them in his case and sighed. "I wonder what this prodigy hacker has found for us." He picked up his coffee, "I ponder in general if she is trying to help us, or just herself." He looked at her as he took a sip, waiting for an answer.

Tsunemori swallowed her bite of food before placing the cutlery on her plate. She sipped her coffee, and then spoke. "Tastski wants to help. I am not obliged to think of anything unless she shows me that I need to be worried. If she wants to deceive us, then soon enough that deception will show. No one can keep those sorts of secrets for too long, they always come out in the end."

"What if we're too late? To see the deception, if it were to happen?" He asked.

She rested back in her seat, "I don't know. I haven't thought that far yet."

"Excuse me," a voice mumbled behind them. They snapped their heads in the direction of the voice. They were met by a girl of average height with forest green eyes, and a worryingly pale complexion. Her hair was dark and long, reaching her waist. It was layered choppily and her fridge was full, but was tamed by being roughly cut. Her clothes were from sibyl authenticated charity shops, they looked like 1960's clothing, from what Tsunemori remembered from watching 60's movies online a few times. Her waistcoat was made of thick wool, a deep reddish brown with a button up floral shirt underneath that's background was a tea stained yellow. Her jeans were the only thing new, they were a light blue with rips at the knees.

But her eyebrows were silver. She was naturally white haired, like an albino.

"My name is Rheya Tastski. You know me as Locus." Her voice was formal. She sounded like she had to rehearse that line over and over.

Ginoza raised a brow, just as confused by her appearance as Tsunemori was. It was like she was a girl born in the old world. Before Psycho-Passes and gender-equality were operated. How this girl knew how to fix and modernise Drone equipment and still bare the name 'Locus' was beyond any of their comprehension.

Tsunemori snapped out of the confusion first, standing up and shaking her hand that she took with second thoughts. It seems she didn't like to be touched, or that she didn't trust Tsunemori enough to allow her to touch her. But out of courtesy, she shook her hand. But shortly.

Tsunemori hoped that she learned to trust Rheya as much as Rheya probably wanted to trust Tsunemori.

"Akane Tsunemori, Inspector from M. W. P. S. B. This is Nobuchika Ginoza, Enforcer from M. W. P. S. B. " She waved towards Ginoza who nodded curtly. "Thank you, for … well, showing your face."

"Pleasure is all mine." She nodded curtly back, sitting at the table. She put her bag on the table, it was brown and leather. Old. It smelt like old people as she opened it. From inside the bag she brought out a tablet. Turning it back on from snooze mode and connecting a keyboard to the bottom. A new model, which was the complete opposite of her.

"I will be blunt, I was debating on not turning up. But you would've found me anyway, and I would be in a holding cell, being asking monotonous questions that would bore me to the high heavens. I am lucky, I understand, to not be arrested. After all, I am a hacker. I have breached many security walls, and hacked into banks to pay for my rent. That is all obvious. To me, I did nothing wrong, however, in participating in any of these activities. I needed to hack into your database to throughly research each and every one of you. To do my best in finding each suspect I ended up finding for you, resulting in justice being pursued. Which, is why I did the latter. Hack into banks. I can't do it all for free, I see it as a way you can pay me for my troubles. Even if you didn't ask me for help, I still did. From my own time." She eyed them, whilst she had been speaking, she had been tapping away at the keyboard. She was busy. "I enjoy the puzzles, the cryptic language that each of your cases seemingly bring along with them. It is dazzling, to see another mind-boggling puzzle come into my view. And this time, I can find the person who has been annoying me for years."

"The other hacker," Tsunemori said. Of course, the other hacker would annoy other hackers. Stealing their fun and the thunder that came with hacking. "You know who it is." As for the other things that Tastski has admitted too, well in reality she was correct in what she was saying. Tsunemori accepted it, and moved on.

Tastski stopped typing for a moment, looking up at Tsunemori and raised her brow. As if she had said the most idiotic thing she could possibly utter. "Hackers never know each others identities unless you trust them with your life." She said simply, "Think about it, we're consistently being threatened of being found. Most hackers have clouded Psycho-Passes. We never ask for our real names. We know each other by code only."

Tsunemori understood, she nodded and started eating again. "So you know their code?" She asked, mid mouthful.

Tastski watched her eat, as if intrigued. "Yes, I do."

Ginoza sipped on his coffee, "Well don't leave us in suspense."

She glared at him, her eyes would have been red if they could match her mood. Tsunemori did not think her to be insane, rather easily rattled. But not in the usual hot headed manner. Tastski moved quietly, spoke quietly, intelligently. Each of her movements were calculated and deliberated before they were done. Akane could tell that every time Tastski spoke to one of them, it took all of her efforts just to speak to them. She didn't like people. Being around them apparently annoyed her. It was probably why she was so match-made to computers. They did your command without asking questions.

"The hackers name is Sphinx. I have no idea of their identification, like I explained beforehand. I do not know if they're boy or girl… or even cyborg." She explained, picking her bag up again and brought from it a flask. She used the lid as a cup as she poured fruit tea into it. "Sphinx is better than me in hacking. He or she can edit footage in seconds so no one notices the changes. They pre-plan everything. Everything is preconceived. Sphinx's signature move is adding puzzles in their work. They despise anything being boring."

She received a packed breakfast from bag, she got out a fork and dug into her egg fried rice and left over honey fried chicken and sipped her tea. "Though I enjoy puzzles myself, I dislike including them in my work. I find it tedious. I would rather someone who I am helping to find the clues instantly."

Ginoza had been writing down the information about Sphinx as Tastski went on. Sending it to Sho, most likely. Tastski watched him and sighed, "You have questions, don't you Tsunemori?"

"I think having questions is logical in this condition." She replied, she had finally finished her food. "Quite honestly, I am more curious as to why you dislike Sphinx so much."

She smirked, "Because, it'll be fun." She smiled fully, "Plus, Sphinx killed a person. That isn't how I think things should be done." In other words, she could hack into a bank to pay her rent, but killing people was too far.

Ginoza raised a brow and shook his head, Tsunemori nodded lightly and stood up. "Then come with us back to the office. I have already spoken with my boss, and she is acceptant of you helping us on the account that if you hack outside the help you give us on this case. You will be arrested. Understand?"

Rheya watched her, eyes blank. There was something about how she looked at you that disturbed Tsunemori. It reminded her of Makishima. That cold calculative stare that could slice you open if it wanted to. It could find all of your secrets and leave you bleed dry. Rheya was hiding something, but at the moment, Tsunemori wasn't sure if she was ready to find out what that thing was.

* * *

><p><strong>Things are set. You know where he is.<strong>

**V**

She was sitting in the cold outside. It had been sleeting today. It reminded her of home.

She wasn't looking forward today, she didn't want to work today.

The usual skip in her step had vanished, replacing it was a light step that was slow and prickly.

The house was in the countryside, outside was cold and wet. Inside looked warm and inviting. Her face looked sad for a moment, she missed places feeling like that. Warm and inviting, homely and nurturing.

She brought out the devise, putting it to the garage door. It opened silently, the door had recently been oiled. She slipped inside, blending into the darkness that the outside brought with it.

No one heard her, she was always silent. Easily undetected. They didn't have the car inside the garage, which seemed odd to her. Not dwelling on it, she turned on a small light, giving her light room to work. They had a tool bench, and she had gloves on. She thought quickly of a method, it seemed logical and theatrical. It would work.

There was a folded chair in the corner, she unfolded it, checking its weight. Putting it to the side for a moment, she put her bag to the floor and opened it. Clingfilm, the industrial brand that was large in width and length. She covered the room with it. Double layering the floor.

She put the chair in the middle of the room, and she had found some rope and wire. She put up her hood and turned off the light. Picking up an old can and dropping it to the floor. It made a loud bang, toppling away from her. She silently stood behind the door. Her expression hadn't changed from sad from the time she entered the garage.

The door opened. She pulled out the crowbar from her parka pocket, she gave a blow.

"Time to work." She mumbled to herself, watching the unconscious form twitch as they bled onto the clingfilm.

* * *

><p>Sho had shown some liking to Rheya as soon as she sat beside him, asking him about anything he knew about hacking. Due to him being an ex hologram specialist, he would have to know about coding. His face had a shade of red that repelled his already obnoxiously dark red hair. He answered softly, stuttering between each word. Tsunemori could almost see the drop of sweat at his temple. He hid his face under his hair.<p>

Rheya spotted the gesture, she stared for a few seconds before looking back to her tablet that was placed in her lap. She was now using a stylist pen to type. Usual people usually take a while to type things up on tablets with pens, but Rheya seemed to be a pro at it. Her hand was quick, like she had calculated the moves two-seconds before and knew where she needed to go. Sho watched her, face full of admiration and surprise. She smirked under her long length of hair, she knew that he liked her.

Tougane eventually showed Rheya the evidence they had so far, she watched whilst using her fingers to tap on the tablet, writing down what he was saying to her. She could touch-type, that seemed to be her advantage. She was interested in what was in front of her. The message. So plain and simple. Tsunemori could tell that she had come up with several possibilities of the word Sphinx had put into the video footage. What it meant. What context he or she had meant it in. Once Tougane finished, she leaned back in her chair, index finger on lip.

Akane couldn't help but look at her. She was far more superior in intelligence than anyone in this room. She knew how to think, that was her bonus. She knew how to remember and save things into her mind like a file. It was a memory castle. One of the most common ways intelligent people like herself remembered anything they had learned. Build a euphoria, decorate it with those memories. Make each fragment of that castle your own memory.

It was quite simple.

"_Mândrie_… Romanian, obviously. But the context of the word is completely logical to any religion or country. Pride. What is pride?" She asked.

Sho blushed, "Pride in definition is; a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements… or their associates achievements." He mumbled.

Tsunemori suddenly felt like she was back at school. She listened in though, to hear what the new _teacher _had figured out.

"Though you are correct, you are missing the point of my question." She said back, looking up at the ceiling. "Pride in many Catholic terms is a deadly sin. Right?" She looked over to Tsunemori, "Pride is something that the victim had by the bucket loads, or at least that is what I have spotted throughout the brief." She sat up in her seat, she typed on her pad for a moment. "Laius Knight was a part of a hacker organisation, am I right? In that case, let's look at that organisation itself. They stole from the rich, and fed the money they stole to the poor. In hind sight, we see that as a good deed. We do not allow ourselves to instantly see the downsides to that exploit." She flicked her eyes to Tougane, "When in reality, that act was an action of thievery. Whether or not it was for some sort of good, in the end it is all the same. They stole from people." She smirked, looking back to her tablet as she mumbled, "A person of pride would despise someone coming in and changing what they had been doing for years. Saying that the previous ways were idiotic and selfish. A person of pride would instance leave…Am I right?" She looked back to Tsunemori.

She thought for a moment, the coffee cup Tougane had given to her was warm in her hands. The fathomable truth was, Rheya was right. She saw straight into what Sphinx was doing. To her, it was probably an everyday thought. Pride. What would pride do to your life if you misused it?

That was probably the question that Sphinx was trying to ultimately answer for them.

"You stole from the bank to pay yourself for your past efforts with the M. W. P. S. B. So are you trying to say that you know how Laius Knight thought because you too are full of obnoxious pride?" When Ginoza spoke, Sho glared at him. Tsunemori guessed that the awkward boy had fallen for Rheya in seconds. Sho knew though, he couldn't even speak to Ginoza let alone stand up and defend someone he'd just met.

Rheya's smile was deadly, "I am full of pride. I just know when to not apply it to my work. To my life. Just like with any other of the sins. Even going right down to lust," Her eyes wondered to Sho for a moment, he blushed crimson. "I know when to apply it and when not to." She looked away from him, her eyes twinkling with what she just defended herself from. Pride. She wasn't shy around people like she had explained in her file this morning. Instead she just knew that she was smarter than others. She therefore saw no reason to be social around them.

A bleep from the computer on Tsunemori's desk, they all looked to it. The bleep had broken that awkwardness that seemed to now recoil in the room. She clicked on the call button, answering Karanomori was calling them. "Yes," Akane answered.

"Someone just hacked into the M.W.P.S.B database." She said quickly, but calmly. "A video file, with an attachment on it. It was a word document that had a singular word in it. _Gluttony._" She saw everyone's reactions and sighed, "Here I'll put it up. I had to watch it already… be warned, its pretty sickening."

Everyone stood around Tsunemori's desk, Rheya stayed the distance she was. Sho right beside her. The video file loaded, Tsunemori hit the play button on her keyboard.

Someone held the camera shakily, presenting the room that they were in. Not once seeing their face. It was all in their perspective. The room was narrow and undecorated. It didn't take long to see that the person was in a garage of sorts, considering the size, it belonged to a wealthy family or person. The room was covered in large pieces of plastic or clingfilm. It reflected the two lights that were on the ceiling. The person holding the camera put it on a tripod, positioning it to point directly to someone slouched in a foldable chair.

The person behind the camera threw water on him. He snorted and gargled as he awoke, it was obvious that he was tied to the chair. He couldn't move from where he was sitting. "Wh-Where am I?"

"Home sweet home." The voice spoke, disorientated by a device of sorts. It sounded doubled over itself, with a deep back tone and in places a high one. It was still clear

The victim blinked several times, there was blood and water in his eyes. It was obvious that the man in the chair had been hit over the head with a blunt object. Hence the blood. "Who are you?" He mumbled, slipping back into unconsciousness.

"No no!" The voice said playfully, a figure went in front the camera, showing that they were slapping him awake with leather gloves on. "You must stay awake. You won't see the film if you do."

"F-Film?" He muttered.

"Yes." They said in reply. "A film about you!" They excelled their playfulness. Tsunemori sat uncomfortably in her chair. What was going to be in this film?

"I don't understand…" he trailed. They slapped him again, hard.

"You will!" They said too sweetly, "If you manage to stay awake, if you don't watch, I will snap your next so that you have too, okay?" Again, they spoke playfully. Never aggressively.

The man was crying, "O-okay!" They managed to say in reply.

The figure left the frame, rummaging around off screen for a while before they heard something electronic groan awake. "Thank you for letting me use this Tv." They said.

"So much planning…" Ginoza whispered.

He was right, this person had planned this for weeks. You could tell by the amount of detail they had come up with. The clingfilm, the camera, the use of the TV which she guessed a film will be shown on. Meaning a disk had to be made as well. This victim was carefully chosen, just like Laius.

"Okay! Rolling!" The voice said before going silent.

They didn't see the images on the film themselves, but that wasn't the point. The person behind the camera wanted the M.W.P.S.B see the reactions of this victim. Or was he a suspect?

"_Leo…I want you to be a good boy and kiss that man, okay?_" the voice of the man who was suddenly electronic. His voice no sounding like it was echoing. He was on the film.

"_But… why Mr. Halls?" _A young boy replied to his order. He seemed so young. And it didn't take long for any of the group to realise what the person behind the camera was showing them.

The man was named Mr. Halls, and he was the man telling a kid to kiss someone possibly older than him. He was filming child pornography…

It wasn't long before the sound of a grown man grunt in pleasure, and the screams of a child filled the room from the recording. Tsunemori could feel her gut tighten, and her breakfast make an appearance at the back of her throat. The bile burned like pure acid. She put a hand to her mouth, watching the victim cry and scream for the cameraman to turn off the tape. Begging him. Pleading for him to turn it off, saying he didn't know what the cameraman wanted. It was apparently a different man on the tape.

The cameraman did not turn off the TV, he just lowered the volume. He walked to the victim and patted his hair. Like a dog. He was treating him like an animal. "But he said your name, right? Mr. Halls?" The voice spoke, the voice disorientation had changed now. To another pitch. Emotional. "He is begging for you to stop that man taking his innocence… And you ignored him." A high pitched scream came from the TV. "He didn't agree to this, did he?"

The man looked up at the cameraman, "I am not a monster." He tried pleading again, rectifying his actions. "Those children… I took care of them, fed them, clothed them. I just ask them to do favours!"

"Favours…" The cameraman slapped him hard again, "I will do you a favour now… and make you feel like the monster that you are. Monster." Tsunemori for once saw a glance of a parka, thick, man tailored. He was wearing baggy clothing. All black, and a balaclava.

He didn't want to be seen, just heard.

The suspect grabbed Mr. Halls's hair, the old man screamed as the suspect jerked his head forward, a click was heard. "Now you have to watch the TV. I saw you look away. I know you secretly like it, so go ahead, look."

"N-No…" The suspect grunted and jerked his head further forward. "Please, no!" The victim yelled.

"No.. No…" The suspect said, in a trance. "That child is screaming no, but did you listen to him?"

The Victim gulped, "I would've…"

"No." The suspect shook his head, "You wouldn't have. Because you like little boys being fucked. You like it. I can see." He pointed to his crotch, which sure enough, was showing a bulge. He was arroused.

Sho gulped, "What a sick guy."

"Yes." Tsunemori could only find that word in her brain at that moment. She felt rage, confusion and exhaustion flow through her. _He's going to torture him… _She thought to herself.

"Mr. Halls, look at the screen. I will staple your eyes open if you don't." The suspect said softly.

The victim sobbed, "Please… I am a man of God. God will protect me."

It was apparent, that this set something off in the suspect. It clicked and suddenly, the victim was stabbed in the lung with a pen that the suspect picked up hurriedly off the side of the tool table beside them. The victim yelled violently. Thrashing in the chair back and forth, to escape, to live. The suspect grabbed him, using his knee to push the pen in further. The victim yelled, screamed and gargled. Blood poured from his mouth. But he didn't die.

"You think you are a man of God! I spit on you!" The suspect didn't spit on him, but he did kick the pen into his lung almost completely. "Men of God love peace, tranquility and respect the youth!" He yelled, slapping him repeatedly, soon after those slaps turned into punches. The victim only grunted now. Blood oozed from his wound. Soon a puddle had formed on the floor covered in cling film. "They do not get little boys to suck cock!" He managed to break the victim's nose, causing him to whimper.

"You are full of gluttony. You beg for more and more of the things that make you feel full of life. Like food but only better. Men like you deserve fate worse than death!"

"Ssss-ooo, you wil-ll not k-ehhll me?" The Vicar looked up in hope. His eyes twinkling with tears and blood.

The suspect chuckled, "I will kill you, with you thinking of the children who's lives you ruined." The suspect suddenly spun him around. The Vicar started to cry, the suspect looked at him. Tsunemori knew his gaze was likely to be a gaze of disgust. "Here, let's have the audience look."

The suspect moved to the camera, moving the tripod so that they could all see what they were seeing once more. Pictures, hundreds of them… of children. All of them had little white crosses underneath them…

"They're dead…" Tougane whispered, his face paler than usual, his eyes wide in shock.

"All of the children…" Ginoza whispered, joining in the conversation. "They killed them all after…"

Tsunemori nodded, "Yes." Again it was the only word she could say.

Yayoi had crept in at some point, she was able to mutter with stress in her voice, "How did no one know?" She sniffed, she was crying. Yayoi was _crying_. "How did we not know… his Psycho-Pass…" She put her hand to her mouth, trying not to gag. "I've already watched this…I can't…" She left, storming out of the room.

Tsunemori wished she joined her.

It was when the suspect picked up a chainsaw and looked into the camera, and said, "And now… for a crimson bath…" The chainsaw suddenly rattled and spluttered. Its roar filling of everyone in the room.

In short, he sliced Vicar Halls's head right off. The blood spray and glued to the clingfilm on the walls. Dripping down to the floor below. Once the head was off, the suspect dipped his finger into the blood before writing in capitals.

_**SPHINX - 2 M.W.P.S.B - 0**_

That was when the video ended, and Sho ran from the room. Only just making outside before he threw up whatever lunch he had eaten beforehand. Tsunemori watched the blank screen, seeing a familiar static tag on the top it. This time, she was able just to click it. Another word document came up… it was a quote.

_Judgement through purity…Purity from the innocent._

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><p><strong>First of all, I hope I did not offend anyone in this chapter. I know it is a touchy subject, but I thought gluttony suited this sort of thing without sounding too unoriginal. But other wise, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Next chapter may be a little later due to college kicking up a notch in its coursework. So I hope to see you all soon. Remember to leave a review :) See ya. (Also, while you wait you can read Fathoming Constellations, which is a Lolu Fairy Tail fic of mine. It is almost finished, so, you can have that whilst I am away.) <strong>


	4. Go find him

**Welcome to chapter 4!**

It took twenty minutes to find out who Mr. Halls was. His full name was Makarov Halls, he moved to Japan when he was eighteen and he was a photographer. He was a normal man, for what you saw on the first layer anyway. He was wealthy and had a large house with many basements in his home for any occasion. Women. Men. And soon enough, children. Locked away in cages. Beaten and bruised. It seemed none had been used as of late, at least two years had passed since the last time a child had been abused. He had moved onto selling women instead.

It was apparent that women made more money than children.

It didn't change the fact that no one figured him out. No one had even suspected that Makarov Halls was a pedophile, pimp and murderer. He had a good psycho-pass, only slightly clouded. Not enough to arrest him, just enough to put him therapy for years. Even the therapist hadn't guessed that children and women in the basement where being subjected to sexual assault. The worst kind of assault that Tsunemori dared wish to ever see again.

Tsunemori didn't go to see the body in the house, she waited for Yayoi and Ginoza to pick it up and take it back to headquarters with drones. Shion examined him, and concluded there were no hidden clues within his body. After that, he was sent to the morgue, no questions asked.

In a way it was odd that were no clues. Although Akane was secretly pleased with that. She didn't know how much more she could take from today. It started as badly as it ended. Catastrophically.

It was also quickly made that Justin Halls would be buried as a criminal, not a public citizen. Head office did not want him tainting their sacred grounds, and for once, Tsunemori agreed to their terms entirely.

On the balcony of the M.W.P.S.B's offices, Tsunemori stood and watched the sun go down. Realising, that what felt like a two hours was actually a whole day. Today had been one big blur, that she wasn't sure of its contents. She knew it would probably be best to get home, have an early night of sleep and see the morning in a brighter set of eyes. Yet she couldn't, not yet. She was frozen by what she saw, what she had heard. Those poor children, killed when they got too old for what Halls had planned for them. What kind of person would do that? What causes someone to do that? What triggered it all? What formulated in that man's brain to cause such catastrophe?

_Its like there are a bunch of Makishima running around and I can't seem to catch them in time. _ She thought sourly, _and people killing them is just another… _She stopped herself, rubbing the corners of her eyes and sighing deeply. _No… Kogami wasn't a killer like that. Not really. He just knew that there was no other way of doing it. He saw no other way. _

She clutched herself and stifled a sob. "Stop thinking…" She whispered, _stop thinking about him. Not at work, that is a rule you have made… _

"Tsunemori," Ginoza made her snap out of it abruptly. She shuddered and looked over her shoulder, she smiled as softly as she was able. Trying in all honesty, to not cry in front of anyone. He didn't seem to notice the red in her eyes as she looked towards the city again. "Turns out that Halls was a lot more loved than you would've thought. His wife who lives in a separate house several hours away has called in. Insisting that she should meet with the head of her husbands murder investigation. She wants to see you at her home tomorrow, midday."

"That murderer has a wife?" She asked, her voice stern. She was suddenly peeved.

"Yes, and she apparently knew nothing of his exploits. Not even his son knew." _He had a kid too?_

She stood straight and narrowed her eyes at the sunset. "If she wants to have a meeting, then it will have to be an official private interview here. I am not going several hours outside my district to just listen to lies." She clutched herself again, "I am going home, inform Ms Halls of my statement. I need to write a report to head office for tomorrow. Goodnight, Ginoza. Don't stay here too late." She said as she passed him, she returned to the office to gather some files.

It was sleeting as she got outside, she sniffled as the pieces of ice touched her cheeks. The floor was icy, she was careful where she walked. How fitting that the worst day ended in a black sky with an icy floor.

Rheya was standing outside, waiting for Tsunemori by her car whilst smoking a cigarette. She didn't stub it out in the car either, instead she lit one from the previous cigarette flicking the old one out the window and looked at her phone. "Thanks for the ride home," she said finally after a few minutes of silence.

"It's no problem." She replied, "Quite honestly, I am still in shock over how you worked today. You really are quite interesting."

She smiled whilst looking out the window, her eyes though were anything but. "I am just a smart person, that's all." She looked to Tsunemori briefly, "I should be thanking you, really. You're actually the reason why I am here, if it weren't for your past investigations, I would've never come out from my hole. You inspired me to help, in all honesty."

"Why?" Tsunemori mumbled, "I did nothing." Nor did she understand why.

"You know that people with high Psycho-Passes aren't always worth the execution setting on a Dominator. I've seen my fair share of those at the Institute for the past two years. People like you should be in power. You see light, even when everything is pitch black." Her eyes never strayed from the window as she spoke, she stared out to the blinding blinking lights of the city. Tsunemori couldn't tell fully, but it looked like she her expression was remorseful.

Tsunemori sighed deeply, "I wasn't always that way. When I first joined Division 1, I was a lot like Mika, who you'll meet soon by the way. She's on vacation. But as I was saying, I had a very narrow mind of how the Sibyl System worked. I believed that it was the only way the world _could _and _would _work, always. When I look back on myself, I get a sick feeling in my stomach."

Rheya nodded, still not looking at her. "Yeah, I get that." She sighed, sitting back in the chair. "Kogami, that was one of the old Enforcers on your team, right?"

"How- oh yeah, right. Hacking." Tsunemori rolled her eyes. "What about him?" She inquired, her heart skipping several beats.

Tastski crossed her legs in her seat, leaning backwards into the headrest. "He's alive. Or so you think, am I right?"

Tsunemori closed her eyes for a moment and bit the inside of her cheek. "Kogami is as good as dead to the system." _Just not to me. Not in my world. _

Rheya finally looked to her, "I don't think he's the kind to die like that. He's a survivor." She smiled, "Kinda like me and you."

Tsunemori wanted to ask what she had meant by that, but before she could the car stopped outside of Tastski's apartment building. It was only thirty minutes from Tsunemori's home.

"Again, thanks for the ride." She opened the door, grabbing her bag and leaving the car. "Have a good sleep, ma'am." She shut the door quietly, before she retreated inside of the apartment building.

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><p>The church was cold and almost deserted. It smelt old and decayed. Her arms prickled as her body begged for warmth. Though she did not allow herself that satisfaction. She had to atone for her sin today. She moved to the alter where she laid on the table where priests would pray to God. She closed her eyes peacefully.<p>

"Begin." She said softly.

A man who stood in the corner of the room stood in front of her, and began beating her body with a metal rod. It wasn't bad enough that she would die, but enough to punish her. She could hear his held back moans of secret pleasure for beating her. She knew also he had arroused by this. He always was.

And she did not cry. Not once.

Once her body bruised enough for the man's liking, she was allowed off the table. She limped slightly to her chambers, where she bathed in cold water until she was clean. It was a final punishment when she chose to sleep naked, in the cold weather that the winter's night brought her. She shivered until she slept.

And she did not cry. Not once.

* * *

><p>After eating a small meal to settle her stomach, Tsunemori found herself taking a second shower of the day. As if scrubbing the death from her very skin. She found herself sitting on the shower's floor, letting the strong stream of water wash over her. She leaned back against the wall, not jumping at the sudden cold spot on her back.<p>

It didn't surprise her when he came to her mind.

Again and again, his face would come to her head at random points of the day. But she could always count on his image appearing at least once in the shower. Maybe it was because no one could see her in here. She was protected from wondering eyes.

Closing her eyes, she let her mind drift.

"What would you do?" She asked his image. "What do you think?"

He smiled to her, that smile that said that he had been thinking of it for a while now. That he had an answer before her. It still annoyed her even now, even when it was just her imagining it. "Before we can safely assume that the killer is the lone wolf we saw in the video, we have to look at how that person acted." He lit a cigarette, he would always do that. "Sphinx likes drama, yet the person in that video did everything to hide himself. Hide their true identity. It makes you question, if the Sphinx we saw in the video is the same Sphinx Rheya knows virtually."

"It did seem odd that the Sphinx in the video wouldn't leave a hint of sorts of their gender, or what they look like. If they are a person of puzzles and games, then surely they'd play that card when the opportunity came." She mumbled to herself. "And certainly, today's fiasco would've been the best of times?"

Kogami would've by now looked off in the distance in thought, tapping his cigarette ash into an ashtray or a can. "Or they're just waiting for something bigger." He said finally.

"I don't know how they would top today, if I am honest with you Kogami." She whispered. He was looking at her, that same look of protection that he gave her in her dreams. That same furrow of his brow, the same cold steel look that was based around his blue eyes. "If you were here, really here, we could solve this case a lot quicker. We were good at that; solving things together, that is." His eyes softened, for a moment, they looked full of remorse.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way." He said softly, looking away from her. She wanted to scream at him. Suddenly all that built up anger and emotion wanted to come leaping out. Instead though, she cried. Begging up between gulps of air to come back to her. She missed him. He glanced in her direction, "I wish that were possible." He looked into the air, closing his eyes out of exhaustion. "I am so sorry." He whispered, reaching for her cheek.

She heard her phone ring in the other room, snapping her back into reality. The water of the shower was now cold, goosebumps covering her arms. She stood slowly, wrapping a towel around her. She turned off the shower before wondering into her front room before picking up her mobile. Unknown Number. She didn't ring back.

She sniffed, wiping away the stray tear from her eye. She had been weak again. She had been so weak. _He's never going to come back. You know it to be true. _

She dried herself off, dressing in warmer sleepwear before sitting in front of her laptop. She sniffed lightly, his stare still in her memory.

She wrote her report on the day's events. Describing in detail what she thought of Sphinx's second reported murder. Concluding that she one hundred percent agreed with the fathomable idea that Sphinx was also a part of the first murder; the suspicious murder of Laius Knight. Asking the board therefore, to allow Division 1 to start treating this case as a double homicide, meaning Sphinx is now a serial killer.

Once she had spell checked and edited the document, she sent it off. Realising the time, she went to turn off the laptop.

_Bleep. _Her laptop startled her. She had mail. A throw away web address had been used. Untraceable. The subject was plain and simple: **I know where he is.**

She widened her eyes, her heart leaping from her chest and trying to come through her mouth. She bit on her thumb, seeing if she was dreaming. Whether the fact she had suddenly been thrown into the world of Hacking today was wearing off on her tired mind. But when she yelped in pain, and her thumb started to bleed, she realised that she wasn't dreaming.

Calm down, she told herself. It might be a hoax.

She opened the body of the email, reading the short message that came with it and bit the inside of her cheek. Half checking if the first test of her consciousness was a dud, half wondering what to do it if she was indeed awake, and this was the result.

**He's looking good. He looks alive, don't you think?**

**Sphinx. **

**P.S… say nothing, or you'll be next.**

She clicked on the file that Sphinx had given her. Sure enough, her deepest dread had come to life. It was also her deepest wish.

He was standing outside of a shabby old bar, the walls were still wooden and the door was rusty. Unlike the modern bars she knew of. The footage showed him smoking a cigarette peacefully, he wore a button up shirt and jeans. Unlike him entirely. What shocked her more, was that he was wearing an apron. He worked wherever this place was.

He was alive. He was alive. He was alive… He was working in a bar. She didn't know where he was, or who he was pretending to be. But seeing his face…

"You haven't changed much," she spoke quietly, tears slowly leaking from her eyes. Her throat was raw. She whimpered as she replayed the short footage. There was one moment, where she could see his face fully. His eyes, they were still that same steel like blue. His hair still messy and untamed. He was still Kogami…

And he was alive.

She silently cried in front of her laptop, watching the footage over and over again. She clutched her chest and sobbed into her arm. "Where are you, Kogami?" She asked the air around her, "I need to know where you are." She told him as if he was right beside her. But she was alone. She had to remind herself of that.

_Bleep_. Another email came through.

A different untraceable address. The subject was: **Go find him.**

**Soon enough, people will know where he is. You haven't got long, Inspector. **

**Sphinx.**

**P.S It smells like pine and lives in the dark… Where is he?**

Akane widened her eyes. Sphinx was playing a game with her. Just them and her. One on one. She felt her brain fizz and crackle as she thought about the little clue that the hacker had left her. It was a distant riddle. No real clue on what they were talking about, or where the answer would lead her. It seemed dead ended and far away.

Pine was a smell she had never been able to smell in her life. Pine forests were almost unheard of, extinct in most areas. Forests in general were receding as days went by. Maybe therefore they were not hinting towards an actual forest, rather what the town was mostly made of. A town that hadn't fully modernised into the place where she lived. It was half stuck in the old era and reaching for the new one.

Or maybe… it wasn't reaching at all.

There were several towns in Japan where they had the common technology, but they stuck to the older way of living. No drones to keep them tamed, and no little jellyfish like house monitors to do their bidding. They were small, secluded towns where they seemed off the charters when you first took a look at the maps. The Sibyl System didn't like those towns in particular, they deemed them to be unholy and dirty towns where people who lived there were surely going to against Sibyl law.

They were also perfect places to keep hidden. A lot of these towns forbade to watch the Sibyl authenticated news channels, rather, they watched the less budgeted ones that weren't authenticated to Sibyl, therefore they were unlikely to know if the new person coming to town was a murderer on the run or not. Since those particular news rooms only allowed themselves to reveal big news. A murderer on the run was hardly new, as it were, unlike a prime minister being arrested for manslaughter or rape for instance.

Those towns were the best there were for Kogami to possibly run away too. He wouldn't stay there forever, rather wait possibly for a few years before moving onto another similar town.

But from what Akane could remember from her grandmother's stories of these towns, there were at least twenty of them. Holding only several hundreds of people at once. Cosy almost.

Sibyl would know if she looked up anything to do with these towns. But she had a sneaking suspicion that Sphinx had found a way to send the mail so the footage wouldn't be detected. She was betting on that idea.

She would have to do it the old fashioned way, and look into the library. She would do that during her break tomorrow. They would surely have plenty of books on those particular towns. But would that be enough?

Akane knew Kogami well enough to call him her friend, yet did she really know him to know where he'd be? No, the answer would be no. But there was someone who did, after all, they spent years together as student and teacher.

She decided it to visit Joji Saiga tomorrow after work, after all, he was open to her at any time in the day. They never recorded her visits, there was never a need too. She smiled to herself, looking back to where she had paused the footage. His face was looking in the distance, as if looking for someone.

_I wonder Kogami… am I the person you're waiting to come from the distance?_

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><p><strong>Sorry for a late and sort of short chapter! College is really busy at the moment, and I wanted this chapter to be shorter so I had time to make a longer chapter next time. But all in all I hope you all enjoyed it. Remember to review and tell me what you thought. What does Sphinx want with Akane? And will Joji help her, or will he stick by Kogami? You will have to find out next chapter. Hope you all have a wonderful few days. Bye. (And even though I am in the UK, to the people in the US! Happy Thanksgiving.)<strong>

**By the way! Come follow me on Instagram: chazlylpratt and my Anime blog: .com**


	5. Greed's kiss and Pine Trees

**Welcome to chapter 5! Last update before Christmas... **

* * *

><p>The next few days were tedious ones. Akane found no time the following morning to get books from the library as planned, nor had the time to visit Saiga. It was as soon as she had made way to go through with both of these objectives that she got a phone call from Mika saying that she needed to meet her and the rest of Division 1 at the Grand Music Hall immediately. Grumbling to herself, Tsunemori cancelled her appointment with Saiga and made her way to the GMH. She came to realise though, as she parked outside the large and beautifully crafted building, that she was about to walk into another homicide investigation.<p>

She slid out of her car, zipping up her jacket and rolling the hood on her head. She held herself as she made her way inside, the heels of her shoes dangerously slipping against the icy surface of the gravel. She managed to remain intact from the icy blitz of the outside world as she got to the steps of the GMH. She opened the doors and went inside, being met by an obnoxiously annoyed Mika.

"Ma'am." She said firmly, "I have to say this now, I am not happy that you hired a hacker to 'help' with this investigation."

Tsunemori rolled her eyes, Mika thankfully not seeing the action. Tsunemori sighed deeply and stopped in her pace, she turned to Mika and said calmly. "You aren't happy by most things I do, but why may I ask are you upset about this particular aspect of my authority?" Mika was at first surprised by Tsunemori's snap, but easily relaxed and scoffed.

"She's insane, going on about '_greed_' which has nothing to do with this homicide." As Akane walked, she followed. As soon as Tsunemori heard the word 'greed' she knew that Mika hadn't seen the scene yet. She hadn't even read the case file if it meant following the direct order of Ginoza or Tougane. No, this girl didn't know a thing, not this time. Mika all but continued, Akane meanwhile hardly listened. "She is also taking complete control, once I said that her theories were obscene and completely insane, that she had no evidence at all that this murder is of the other's, she kicked me out of the room. I haven't even seen the body yet!"

Akane swirled around and stopped Mika mid-breath of her next half of speech, she crossed her arms and looked at Mika sternly. "Two days ago, Laius Knight, an inmate at the institute picked up a Dominator and shot himself in the head with it whilst it was on Eliminator mode. Yesterday, we watched a recording of a man who sold children on the sly into prostitution get tortured and decapitated. This is all done by one particular hacker, Sphinx. He or she, are killing people that Sibyl have yet to judge or have plainly missed out completely. They always leave a sign at their crime scenes that relate to the person's deadly sin. The first two were Pride and Gluttony. Now Mika, tell me, did you even read the report? Or did you go in there and try and do my job, instead of your own, _again _without any knowledge of what to do or what is happening?"

Mika's eyes widened in complete shock, she opened her mouth to speak but Tsunemori cut her off by slamming the entrance door to the main stage in her face. She was in no real mood to see Mika this morning, the young girl was a lot more naive than Tsunemori ever was at the job. She was quick to snap at anyone who had a high Psycho-Pass and judged Tsunemori's logic. Which had today, caused Akane to snap to a level she had never been before.

In reality though, she knew it needed to be done. No matter how much her stomach clenched in worry about how Mika would take the scolding.

Rheya was sat on the stage of the hall, looking up to the ceiling and touch typing away at her tablet. Sho was standing behind a projector, probably looking through to find any clues. Tougane was going through the stalls individually to also look for any clues that could be found, whilst Ginoza and Yayoi stood behind Rheya looking where she was looking, their faces pale in disgust.

Ginoza spotted Tsunemori and nodded, "Lady Viktorya Baranovsky, lead Violin player that recently started a tour in Japan with her personal Orchestra; _Izbav' nas. _She is well known the Classical Music industry as a prodigy. She was only in her early twenties." Tsunemori had been looking at Viktorya's body whilst Ginoza talked. She nodded for him to continue. "She was found this morning by a group of cleaners, time being around four. She had reportedly been staying late at this hall to rehearse. She has always wanted to play in Japan, so this tour meant a lot too her. She had been signed to receive five hundred million yen to tour in the country." Tsunemori walked under the body and winced slightly, nodding for him to continue, but was shocked when Rheya spoke instead.

"She was killed before she was hung." She began, "Her mouth and nostrils aren't filled with the ash or fumes that the fire would've come with her dying in the fire. From what I can see, her throat shows signs of strangling. Though I doubt with hands, probably with a wire or something. I've got some drones to look at the instruments in the hall to double check for any murder weapons. As you can see, her heart has been taken out. Which is what is being lit up with the projector." She peeked up through her eyelashes, "Someone cut off the smoke detectors, too."

"No notes?" Tsunemori managed.

"Nope." Rheya mumbled, "Though I doubt that this isn't a Sphinx murder. It is theatrical enough."

By this point, Mika had been in the room for several minutes. Her face still red, and her arms crossed securely across her chest. "Viktorya was my mother's favourite classical music player. She liked that she sprung from the ordinary. She didn't play like most violinists."

Rheya smirked, "She was well known for being expressional of her work. She never followed the notes, she made her own up. To her, they sounded refined and modern. To many critics, she was right."

"Could a critic be the true murderer? I mean, that could be a reason to murder someone. If you for say were ridiculed for ridiculing a modern day classical violinist, then you would be angry enough to surely kill someone." Sho mumbled quietly.

Yayoi sighed, "As much as I would understand a critics anger if that were the case, I hardly think they would risk their lives to take another. Critics are flimsy and wimpy creatures."

Rheya stretched and sat back on the stage, her tablet sat in her lap. "She's the daughter of Lord Carlisle Baranovsky, am I correct?" She asked out of the blue, causing everyone to look at her.

"Yes," Ginoza replied, his eyes curious as they looked down on her.

Rheya laid fully on the stage, "She lived a life of luxury. She was only fifteen when she became famous for changing notes on classical pieces, such as Beethoven or Tchaikovsky. She is used to be adored and needed by people. She needs it like a drug, attention being her own formulation of Heroin. She wants money more than that, that is her Cocaine, safer yet just as deadly. She is the definition of _Greed_ itself. She needs it more and more, because it is the only way she knows how to feel any emotions." She smirked, "I should know, me and her used to attend violin-battles." She chuckled in the memory of it, "She only won three times out of the eight we duelled, believe it or not."

Sho widened his eyes, "You play the violin?"

"You duelled against Viktorya Baranovsky and won?" Mika asked in a curious tone, though Tsunemori could tell she didn't believe it.

Rheya stood up, crossing her arms. "Viktorya was nothing really but a Greed filled individual. She wanted nothing more than fame and money, and would do _anything _to get it. Even at one point get someone to severely beat me before one our battles so she would win… though that time, we drew…" She shrugged whilst she smirked. "Though I can't say how much further she'd go to get what she wanted, but I'd bet on something more extravagant than beating a sixteen year old." She walked to Sho and looked up to the heart dangling from a thread in front of Baranovsky's body.

Tsunemori frowned and too looked at the body and then heart. "Someone cut down the heart," It clicked to her what she had meant after she said it. Her brain as if working in autopilot this morning had thought of how Sphinx left the message to Division 1. It was simplistic, yet it symbolic. The woman who was full of Greed, who had no heart needed her heart to be filled.

The message was in her heart.

It took two Drones to cut it down, Tsunemori put on a pair of gloves before kneeling beside the organ. She used a scalpel to open up the delicately sown stitches. Slipping two fingers into the fresh slit, her fingers found something inside, it felt like plastic. She grabbed a pair of tweezers from the table that a drone handed to her. She took the plastic out. It was covered in blood and small amounts of loose tissue. Tsunemori used a tissue to wipe it away, throwing the soaked tissue on a drone. She held it up to the light, and looked at it in complete disbelief.

"Greed…" She muttered, "You were right."

Tougane looked up to the pictures as well, studying them for a few seconds before muttering, "Is that old fashioned film?"

Ginoza raised a brow, "Film? The old tape like thing that they used to make photographs before holograms?"

Rheya snorted, "Yeah, that Film." She knelt and took the film from Tsunemori, she had her leather gloves on so no one stopped her slipping the Film out of the plastic to examine it further. Akane leaned in to look as well, they both stared for a few seconds before Akane blushed slightly.

"Is that a breast?"

Rheya looked to her, "I think it is a breast of a woman, yes."

"Who's breast?" Mika asked surprised, "Why are there breasts on film?"

Rheya stared at her as if she had asked a mundane question, "Because, no one looks at film anymore."

Tsunemori took a breath, "In other words, no one would ever see these photographs apart from the people who are in them and the person who took them. Meaning it is a perfect way to sell black market pornography photographs without anyone really knowing that they exist." She stood up and sighed, "My bet that this film is proof that Viktorya Baranovsky took part in black market pornography."

Rheya continued to look at the film before she too stood up straight. Running her fingers through her hair she mumbled, "I don't think that's the extent to the story, ma'am." She glanced to Akane, "I think I know the guy she's having sex with in these photos, though I won't be one hundred percent sure until I develop them."

Mika looked confused as if she'd never heard about how to develop film before in her life, though Akane could understand, she was a bit disappointed that Mika hadn't researched in the past ways of life like most in the room had.

"Does it really matter who she was having sex with? I mean, how the hell does it connect to the case at all? So what if she was having pictures taken of her doing some guy on the sly, it isn't like people don't do that all the time." Mika interjected with an addled tone.

Rheya could sense the body language in the room, Akane could see her straighten her back as if she took offence to Mika calling her theory wrong once again. She took a deep breath and smirked, that smirk that Akane knew to be a sign that she was about to prove you wrong.

"Viktorya was given five hundred million Yen to do the Japanese tour. That was only to her alone, a quick scan into her bank account shows that she was given the money directly from the Board of Music Governors private accounts. This alone is tediously suspicious, as if someone had already thought this through. As if it had already been planned that I would think of it. The transaction was put through after five pm yesterday evening. When the Board's meeting with Viktorya ended and Viktorya came downstairs to this stage to practice. Now, the only person on the board at that hour was Neeve Herman. Lead of the Board, may I add." She crossed her arms, "He has a ring that symbolises his rank on the board."

"And?" Mika grumbled.

Rheya let out a slightly frustrated sigh, Tsunemori was surprised and allowed her to continue. Rheya put one of the frames of the film out in front of Mika, "Look closely, you have a problem of _not looking _before you speak. Look at the man that this _victim_ is straddling."

Tsunemori hadn't thought much of the ring she saw in the picture until Rheya had spoke about the Board having a symbolic ring just for his rank in career. She realised then and there that Neeve Herman had been the man that Viktorya had been having sexual relations with whilst in Japan.

Mika too realised this as she spotted the ring, she blushed. "So, he was the man she was having sex with. Maybe he killed her, maybe she secretly took the pictures and he found out?"

"No," Yayoi said, "look at her face, she's enjoying it too much to know that a camera is taking photographs of her. Rather she is enjoying it because she is getting what she wants. Money, and lots of it."

"So none of them knew?" Sho said, blushing.

Rheya rubbed her eyes, "I won't know anything whilst the evidence we have has been developed further to be confirmed evidence that will help us." She looked to Tsunemori, as if pleading. Tsunemori could see that her awkwardness was starting to show, that feeling that she must get whilst being around people must be starting to crack. Akane realised that she got like this when she wasn't the person with the answers, that she hardly had the answers to give to people anymore.

Akane clicked her fingers to gain some attention, "Let's go back to headquarters and get Shion to develop the film, we'll do a postmortem on the body and go through in a group meeting what we think so far. Understand?"

"Yes ma'am," they called back in unison.

* * *

><p>He had been doing some detective work for himself lately. She hasn't been answering his calls recently and was starting to get irritated. He left emails instead, knowing she preferred that way of contact. No reply. He instead decided to take matters into his own hands. Her apartment wasn't far from his own, and she never used to mind him just going inside whenever he wanted. So when he broke into her apartment for the thousandth time in his life, he felt no guilt.<p>

Her apartment was small, he was used to that by now. He liked her small space as it smelt just like she did. Cigarettes, musky perfume and elderflowers. He enjoyed that everything was no more than a few steps away from you, no matter your place in the apartment. To his left from the front door, was her small four by four bathroom, shower, shower curtain that still dripped with water, a toilet with the seat down and a floor mat that still was damp. She hadn't been out long, it seemed.

After locking the door with a hook and a key to make it seem it had been locked from the outside, he moved through her apartment. Going into her bedroom, where her bed sheets were still tossed and messy from when she had slept in them. He sniffed, her scent was strong in here. He could imagine that she stayed in here most of the time. It was her little sanctuary.

He opened one of her bedside draws, finding a little device nestled between some cloth. He thought it was a sex toy, he had to be honest with himself, that when he found out it was actually just a tracking device that was made to look like a bullet, he felt disappointed.

He safely put it back into the draw and stood straight. He moved to the kitchen next, making himself a tea before sitting on her worn sofa. Sipping the tea silently, he got out his laptop and made up another email.

**I have a surprise for you when you get home.  
>Love, Ryuu. <strong>

He sat back in the seat and sighed deeply, "Love… me." He pursed his lips before shutting the lid of his laptop and waited.

* * *

><p>She had managed to sneak out of headquarters to the library on her lunch break, she said that she had a lunch appointment with her grandmother, which was how she left without suspicion. As much as she disliked lying that she was spending time with her grandmother, it was unfortunately a thing that needed too be done.<p>

She had promised though that she wouldn't be too long, she had an hour, hopefully it would enough time.

Of course traffic didn't hear her silent wish, she took twenty minutes to get to the library when in reality, it should've taken ten. She paid for her parking before entering the older building, inside drones sailed through the halls silently. There wasn't a pin sound in the library, it was deadly quiet. Good. She could work in peace.

She asked the drone where the history section was, also the political and the Dendrology sections. She wrote down where she could find them when told, and walked to the history section first.

She searched for five minutes, searching the encyclopaedia for the exact destination of the villages that were cut off from Sibyl. She had no luck, frowning she moved onto the political section, doing the same thing as before. There, she found something. A newspaper clipping within a book called, '_Sibyl System's battle with the barbarian within the pine_,' Tsunemori wondered if the title was a joke at first, but then realised how far up their own egotistical ass Sibyl truly were.

The newspaper clipping was only two paragraphs long, but it named two of the possible twenty villages. Which was a start. Tsunemori copied the newspaper clipping's text into a notepad she had brought with her. The text read:

_Two more small town villages have rejected the Sibyl system's help today, after a small time riot within their barriers. MWPSB managed to calm the riot before heading back to the city where hours later, Sibyl decided to allow their independence, on the condition there would be some checks to see if any wanted convicts that could be arrested when needed. _

_All twenty rioting villages allowed such conditions, and have now started their _**_lonely _**_venture into independence without the graceful help of Sibyl. Two of the twenty villages that were the main point of the riots, have apparently however, said that since they are an independent village, there is no need for Sibyl to interfere, stating: "We will protect our people." The two villages names are: Pinewood and Snowville. They also happen to be the biggest of the now independent villages. We will update you of the villages progress or decrease when there is news. _

She walked from the Political section to the Dendrology section, next. There she found out that there only actually two villages off the Sibyl system's grid that were hidden in within Pine trees. Both separated from each other by a large forest that went on for a couple of miles. These villages were the same as the ones in the newspaper clipping. She smirked, underlining the name in the notebook and sighing. He was in either one of these villages right now. Hiding away from her direct vision.

_Where are you, Kogami? _

That was when she looked at her watch, widening her eyes as she realised that she had ten minutes to get back to the station on time. She packed away her things and left the library unnoticed.

When she got back, everyone was in a circle of thought. Ginoza glanced in her direction, and then gestured towards Rheya who looked like she was in a middle of a deep thought. Tsunemori piped quickly, "Let me guess, our victim really was no saint?"

Yayoi shook her head, "No she wasn't. We've found evidence confirming that Baranovsky was keeping the money that would pay for her Orchestra for herself. Ultimately, becoming one of the richest Violinists in the world in one tour."

Mika bit her lip, "She also booked another tour in Italy, right after the one here. She would be paid even more there, and again, there are signs that she would've kept the money."

"How did _no one_ notice?" Tougane mumbled from the corner.

Rheya cut in, finally. Her voice strained, as if she'd been holding in her anger from earlier. "Someone _did _notice." She said, "The killer noticed. The reason however why she died, is unclear. Why kill someone just because they kept money? There must've been another reason."

Sho bit his lip, worryingly glancing at Rheya before muttering quietly, "I found something quite interesting….Um, would you like to look?"

"Yes, please." Tsunemori replied kindly, taking the paper from his hands. She scanned it and raised a brow, surprised by what she saw on the paper. "She owned her own trust fund? For up and coming classical musicians around the world?" She clicked her tongue, "Maybe she was taking the money for that."

Ginoza shook his head, "By what Rheya has explained about the woman, I find that unlikely, ma'am."

"Explain?" Tsunemori said blandly.

He sighed, "I've looked into her trust fund, the fund is unknown by any official Musical Boards. No one has even heard an utter about it being recently released, either. So I asked Shion too look into it, and she came up with evidence that Lady Baranovsky was keeping the money for herself, as the trust fund's bank account only has several thousand American dollars inside. Kind of skimpy, for funding the future of music, don't you think?"

Rheya took in a sharp breath, "There it is… Motive." She stood up and gritted her teeth, "Kings in the old times were killed by their people from stealing from the poor. Mythologically, Robin Hood took from King John to give to the poor, correct?" They all nodded, "Robin Hood despised that the rich took from the poor, people who indeed needed the money more than people who didn't work a day's labour in their life." She smirked, "The killer knew this, he or she knew that Baranovsky was stealing from the poor." She widened her eyes, "Wait…" She sat back down, pulling up her tablet and typing away. "What if she took the motive of Robin Hood one step further. For instance, killing Baranovsky? Like Robin Hood eventually must've done to Prince John, right?"

Mika raised a suspicious brow, "Are you saying… Sphinx is pretending to be a fictional character to gain points?"

"Not necessarily for points, but for their own self indulgence for sure. They're egotistical. They think if they do something remotely good, it'll clear their sins." She looked up, "That's why he or she targeted the one woman who was full of sins. Full of Greed."

Rheya turned the tablet screen to them all, "Tokyo's largest orphanage, the one that is going to be shut down soon due to lack of funds. It recently received a large sum to their bank accounts. By recently I mean this morning."

"How much?" Tsunemori dared to ask, knowing the answer before she said it.

"Five hundred million yen." Rheya replied, smirking. "Sphinx wanted to kill of Greed once and for all."

"And she probably slept with Neeve because he noticed, she did it to keep him quiet" Tsunemori said, "question is still, where did the film come from? Who planted it?"

"Sphinx," Rheya said in reply. "It isn't much to know that a greedy person would do anything to get money. Even if it was through sleeping with the leader of things… shall we say."

Mika suddenly burst, "But why! Why kill her over some money stealing?"

"Because, it relates back to the deadly sins. Greed is a sin that can't be unpunished. Sphinx sees this as another way of following those rules." Ginoza said softly.

Mika puffed her cheeks, "Pathetic reasoning, if you ask me."

Rheya gave Tsunemori a look as if to say, 'no one did.'

* * *

><p>He got the letter that morning, he had been staring at it for hours. Cigarette after cigarette, he smoked. Though the fire blared behind him within the confinements of his wood burner, there was a slight chill climbing up his spine all the same.<p>

The paper crinkled under his fist, he had almost scrunched it up in his palm. He knew what it had said, he didn't need to look at it again.

Though the picture he received along with it… he kept. It sat, still smooth, on his kitchen table. He hadn't stopped looking at it. She was okay.

She had changed… Her hair was still short, and she was still tiny framed. But she had grown an inch or two, and her bust had filled out at least one half of a cup size… She looked great, sitting in that library and reading books.

She looked like she was studying something, but he had no idea what at first. It wasn't until he leant forward to study it further, that the chill up his spine hit critical.

_She's caught on about the off-grid villages… _

He rubbed his eyes slowly, "God Akane…" _I want too see you… but that's impossible… Please don't find me. _

He looked back to the letter, flattening it back on the table and giving it another read. He sighed and closed his eyes, "God please, no…"

**She's looking good… almost as if she's found something to live for. **

**Sphinx.**

* * *

><p><strong>Hello there! I hope you all enjoyed the fifth chapter! Who is Ryuu? Who is he waiting for? And... KOGAMI! HELLO! (pls, open your arms to the fact that Akane is gonna do her best to find you... pls.) Mika isn't my favourite character in the anime, btw. I just think she needs to mature, and stop being a bit of a loaded gun towards the enforcers and Akane. <strong>

**Be nice to Akane, she is more fragile than she looks. **

**REVIEW, that'll be lovely! This is the last update until after Christmas! So I won't see you all until then. So MERRY CHRISTMAS! In the mean time, read my other fanfic for Fairy Tail!: The Four Kingdoms. Follow my tumblrs! m-o-n-s-t-r-o-u-s (Black and white blog) and my anime blog, lovemakespiritsstronger !**


	6. Blackout

**Welcome to chapter 6! **

**Pre-A.N: Welcome back after my Christmas semi-hiatus! Please enjoy my chapter, I hope you like it, gonna re-read it later if I see any mistakes. (I need sleep, sleep chazly is sleepy)**

* * *

><p>He waited in her apartment for over six hours, he soon deducted that she wasn't coming home. He sighed and looked at his watch and then checked his emails. One mail from her came through, her message was enough.<p>

**I am busy tonight, fuck off Ryuu. **

**M.**

He grinned, shutting his laptop before leaving her apartment, putting the file on her coffee table. She would have to wait and see what gift he had left for her.

* * *

><p>She had taken him to a nightclub. Of course he had been stuttering and making small excuses as to why he didn't think it would be a good idea. But in the end, she got him to go with her. They met after work, she had changed into a flower patterned top and skinny jeans, he was still wearing his red button up shirt, tie and baggy trousers. He looked adorable, she had to admit, blushing whenever she set her eyes on him. She had a small soft spot for men who tried to do the right thing with women. Treat them nicely, take them out on small cute dates like you saw in old fashioned films. She liked the idea of being treated nicely, though she knew deep down that she didn't deserve it.<p>

The nightclub wasn't too full, which he had been relieved by. She ordered some drinks, he mumbled that he shouldn't really drink on top of his antidepressants. She smiled up at him, "Life doesn't have to be about pills, sometimes, you gotta let life be your medication." And with that, he took a shot and gulped it back, widening his eyes at the sudden buzz in his system.

They talked by the bar for a few hours, he looked tired, but never complained about the time. She brought up the conversation of how he became an enforcer, and when he told her the story, she listened. She found it fascinating. When he asked how she kept her psycho-pass so clear, she bit her lip, wondering that herself.

"I don't know," She smiled, it was full of sad memories. "My upbringing to most people would make them become institutionalised. I was brought up in an orphanage in Ukraine where people would beat me daily if I didn't pray to God." She chuckled, "I would always pray that I would be adopted by a couple who wanted a child more than anything. People who wouldn't hurt me. My wish was granted." She glanced at him, he was smiling under his head of hair. She reached out and lifted up his fringe and grinned, "Your eyes are pretty." He blushed crimson. She giggled, "They remind me of storm clouds."

He took a sip of his drink, "I-I um. Thank you."

She cocked her head too the side, "Sho, do you like me?"

He widened his eyes, "I…um…" He gulped the rest of his drink, "I do." He cleared his throat, "I think I've liked you since you first came into headquarters."

She leaned in and looked right into his eyes, "I have too warn you Sho, I am not as sane as I seem." She exhaled, "I am all sorts of crazy, I have just learned how to cope with it." She murmured, looking to the dance floor and looked back to him. "Let's dance!"

"Dance? Here… in front of all those p-people?" He mumbled, she pulled him to the flashing floor, she peered behind her. Once she found a spot, she pulled his hand to her hip, pulling him forward. His crotch pressed against her ass.

She winked, "We're all drunk in here, so why not dance?" She asked, he bit his lip. She felt his guilty arousal, she found it adorable in an odd way that he blushed about it once he noticed it. She spun around, his hands still on her hips. She swayed with him, chuckling to herself. The song wasn't too upbeat, and some couples were resting against each other in a lustful fashion. So when she put her head against his chest, he didn't seem too bothered by it. They danced like that for a while, him holding her, his smell filling her nostrils. He smelt good. Like grassy soap and dark amber.

Hours passed, they were sweating and exhausted when they finally went back to the bar and got some water. He kept looking at her, a small amazed like smile plastered on his lips. She raised a brow, questioning him. His eyes went wide, guiltily, he cleared his throat. "It…it is getting late."

She smiled knowingly, "Your place or mine, Sho?"

He stuttered, his words tumbling over one another. She pulled him close too her, their lips inches apart. "Mine or yours?" She repeated in a whisper.

"Uh…mine?" He questioned himself.

"Yours, then." She giggled, grabbing her bag.

His apartment like most enforcers, was bare and simplistic. She put her coat on the rack and he poured her a glass of wine. "I… don't usually drink. Ginoza left it after a small gathering…" He explained. "I hope it's ok."

She sipped it, a fine vintage, she realised. "Sho?" He looked at her, he seemed nervous. "Sho, how many women have you brought back here?"

He cleared his throat and muttered embarrassingly, "none…"

She smiled, "Am I your first… partner?" She tried her words carefully.

He nodded after a small hesitation. She walked behind him and whispered into his ear, "Do you want me to show you how?"

He blushed again, that same adorable crimson. She saw goosebumps on his arms. He nodded, she held his hand and said, "Take me to bed, then." She winked, "I promise, I will go slow." He seemed both thankful and embarrassed by her sentiment. But sure enough, he took her hand and led her to his ever so tidy bedroom.

For once she enjoyed the events that followed, he may have been a novice to the idea of sex, but his touches were carefully placed. She liked that. She was straddling him, his eyes looked up at her, astonished as slowly she made him moan, gripping the sheets under him and begging her to do whatever she did again and again. She felt for the first time in a long time, pleasure. She had been with many men, but none of them made her feel like that before. Maybe because they all wanted to make her their object. Something to fuck and leave whenever they wished. Sho wasn't like that, it scared her, but she liked him.

She pulled him on top of her and whispered softly, "Show me what you've wanted too do to me since you first saw me."

He did, and it made her dig into his back and moan, sweat sliding down both their temples as they shook in their after pleasure.

They laid beside each other, she laid on her stomach whilst he laid on his side. Their breathing was slightly laboured from their previous experience. He eyed her back and mumbled softly, "You have a tattoo."

"Deceptive of you to notice," she said tiredly.

"What is it?" He asked, leaning up and tracing the base of the tattoo with his forefinger. It was on the lower of her back, his touch made her sigh in comfort.

"A tarantula." She smiled with her eyes closed, "I got it too remind me that I have a past, it reminds me that I need to get stronger from the venom I once had flowing through me." She said, almost asleep.

He nodded, laying back down. "Do you like me, too?" It was sudden, and not a stutter in sight. It surprised her.

She opened her eyes for a moment, "I wouldn't have just done what I did, Sho, if I didn't." Her tired lips slanted into a tired lopsided grin.

"Rheya… I think…" He gulped, unable to finish. She couldn't help but feel guilty hat she knew exactly what he was about to say, but was unsure herself on how to answer him. In full honesty, she didn't know how she felt about anything.

"I know," she smiled, a thread of guilt in her tone. "Give me some time, and I think I will feel the same too. I unfortunately have never had to luxury to feel like you do." She pulled herself closer to him. Resting her head against his warm chest.

_I wish I had the time to love you, Sho… _she thought to herself, as she drifted into a deep sleep.

* * *

><p>It was late — or rather early morning. The sky was an early mix of copper and gray, her neck hairs rose at the sight of it. A bad omen, most would query, she didn't think so, however. Omens weren't things to be seen in the sky, rather things that physically happen in front of you. Sin… Sin was an omen you see all the time.<p>

Her appointment with Saiga was booked once more, and this time she didn't dare cancel it. It would appear rude if she were to cancel on him twice in one day. No matter how cold and exhausted she was, she was determined to visit him. The luxury of a good nights rest would have to come later, when she had done enough to deserve it.

As usual, when she entered the institute, people stared in her direction. The kind of stare that made you wonder what people really thought of you. Whether they thought that you needed to be locked up with the rest of the inmates, or pitied you that you found a reason to visit the inmate. Instead of retaliating, Akane nodded in their direction, she showed her pass to the security man and walked to the elevators. Her breathe hitched slightly, she suddenly realised something quite obvious.

What if Saiga didn't want to help her, what if he turned her away? What would she do…?

The elevator pinged and the doors slid open effortlessly. She walked inside and pressed her floor's button, closing her eyes and sighing a massive breath of air. It had been a rough couple of days. Nightmares and murders were something that didn't seem to mix very well. The sooner either one of those indecencies were solved, the better.

_And if they were never solved?_ She thought to herself, the question again was obvious, it was a question she should've asked herself a lot sooner. Maybe she should've gone to see a therapist, ask them what she could do to clear her mind of the blue eyed man in her dreams that she once called 'friend.' Maybe she should've… but it was too late now, if anything, help from a therapist wouldn't help much at all. She had found her own way with dealing with her nightmares, and Saiga was her ticket to come face to face with it… hopefully.

She felt herself sweat, not too much, but it was there. She was nervous. She drew a shaky breath, her lungs rattling, the doors of the elevator opened and she stepped out.

It was quiet on Saiga's floor, he was one of three inmates inhabiting this particular level. It was expensive, but Saiga was able to afford luxuries. They had recently cleaned the entire level, Akane could smell the bleach in the air. She hoped it wouldn't cling to her clothes, worrying unnecessarily about the smell overcoming the smell of _him_.

She was greeted by the security guard and one of the other two inmates who asked her if she had read the book he had suggested too her a month before. She shook her head, mentioning that she hadn't had the time. Which was partly true, but truthfully, she had no interest in reading an erotica suggested by a perverted ex-psychologist.

Saiga's door opened before her, his room as usual was oddly inviting. It was always surprising to her how comfortable she felt in this room. The lavish decoration made her feel like she was visiting royalty. Even some of the china in the room would've cost him an arm and leg.

Saiga was sat on his one seater, a book gripped by his hands. As if the book itself for that moment was more important than herself. She read the cover and smiled, "Edgar Allan Poe? I never imagined yourself to enjoy gothic poetry, sir." She found herself holding back a giggle.

"There is something strangely beautiful when you read something from someone who never feared death." He said behind the book, "It is as though truth is the only thing they do fear, but they say it anyway." He peeped over the book, "Are you afraid of death, Tsunemori?"

"Only the idea of death. Dying itself isn't frightening too me. Though the idea of me taking my last breath sometimes makes me hold my previous breath a lot longer than needed, sometimes." She said in reply, a smirk on her lips as she sat opposite him and crossed one leg over the other. "What about yourself?"

"A man like me is forbidden to be scared of death, that right was taken from me by myself only when I decided to help a wanted man in running from the police." He raised a brow as he put the book in his lap, "Or have you forgotten that?"

She winced, her eyes finding the carpet's toggles as entertainment for a moment. "Sometimes, I wish I did." She said softly, she was shocked how sad she sounded.

"And why is that?" He asked quizzically.

She looked up at him, "So I don't have too remember how it all ended." She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "It causes pain, unnecessary pain."

"No pain is unnecessary," he said with a hand to his chin. "All pain is there for a reason, the sooner you accept it, the sooner your life changes in another direction."

"Would it be for the better, though?" She asked, her eyes watching him intently. "Would feeling those emotions, really better my life?"

"Who knows? It all depends how you use it. Use pain as your medicine." He smirked, "Don't let it swallow you whole."

She smirked back, "Always the poet."

He smiled fully, that smile that reminded her soulfully of _him _it was almost uncanny. He held up his book, "I had a lot of help."

With that, she had to laugh. She spotted him watching her the same way she had, with full intent, full curiosity. "Why have you graced me today, Miss Tsunemori?"

She sighed, knowing that the topic would have to come up eventually. "I think I may know some information… though I am unsure as how to use it."

"And you thought of me? I am honoured," he stood up. "Coffee is in order, I gather."

She nodded, and mumbled. "I have had a lot of coffee recently."

"You only drink coffee when you're nervous, it must be serious." He said, pressing the button to the coffee brewer. "I'll make it extra strong, then."

She had to smile again, "Yes, indeed." _More serious than you think._

* * *

><p>She walked in the night, no one could see her. She was an invisible entity, someone who could not be spotted even if someone wanted too. She was in control in who saw her, and who did not.<p>

She hadn't been answering her phone calls. Nor her emails. The worry was natural, she kept telling herself. She always answered her emails, she was always in the reach of technology, she would have to answer her cries of help.

Was it because of _him? _The man with black hair? Possibly… maybe he had been stopping her in doing so. She didn't trust him. She didn't trust any man, not really.

She picked up her phone again, checking her messages. She had one. She must've missed it.

**Sorry, was busy tonight. What's wrong?**

**M. **

She bit her lip… Busy with whom? A man? She questioned, but dared to message her with it. She would be angry if she did.

**Is stage four prepared? **

**C. **

She sent the message, sitting on a park bench and waited. People were coming out of bars at this time of night, drunk, happy and full of sinful lust. She watched them, wondering if she could just follow them home and show them what they were doing with their lives. Let them atone for those sins. Alas, she stopped herself. Another message came through.

**Yes. I'll send you the information now. **

**M. **

Another message came through instantly. It came with an attachment.

**Message_attatchment **

**Sender_M**

**Enjoy.**

**M. **

_Oh… I will… _she thought she opened up the document and read it carefully.

* * *

><p>"So, what you are saying is that this killer is only killing those who sin?" Saiga said, putting down his coffee cup for a moment. He scratched his goatee in thought. "As far as sinning goes, Miss Tsunemori, everyone sins eventually."<p>

"I understand that, and so does the _killer_. Maybe they'll never stop, at least until we find them. But their motives are clear enough, each person matches to the traditional descriptions of each sin so far. This person is targeting people who have truly forgotten their humanity." She said in reply, her final gulp of coffee was cold. She placed the mug beside Saiga's.

"Humanity…" Saiga sighed, "It is a fragile thing, really. In moments, we go from being human to monster. It is a social and customary construct that this world had unfortunately created, a world where if you do one individual thing wrong, you are no better than the people who have done dozens of implications to their own soul." He filled their mugs again, hovering his over his lips for a moment. "Maybe that is their message."

Akane hugged her mug with her hand, not really wanting to drink another cup of coffee tonight, though she felt herself slowly going into its temptation. She found herself dead in thought, too distracted by the other burning question that pierced through her skull repeatedly, and has done for days now. _Where was Kogami? _

"Miss Tsunemori, though I do believe that you're truly looking for my help with your difficult case, I also fathom that it isn't the only thing you're asking of me tonight, am I correct?" He drew her from her mindset easily, she looked up dead panned forcing a sigh not to pass her lips. "Something from the past, coming back into light, I presume?" She nodded stiffly, he smiled softly. An odd thing for the man to do, but it comforted Akane all the same.

He sighed, leaning back into his chair and pursing his lips in thought. He eyed her for a moment and then released his lips from their tension. "I regard that he is a big part of your psychosis, how you…process day to day life. He was the main reason you progressed so quickly into your job as an inspector. He believed in you, in more ways than others. It is normal to think of him."

She sighed again, her brain feeling overly tired in a quick amount of time. She could hardly keep from her body from slouching. "He is in my thoughts all the time, Mr. Saiga." She managed to peek at him through her lashes, "I have nightmares about the last time I saw him consistently. It isn't healthy, I'll be the first to admit that." She found a comfortable position similar to Saiga's leaning into the seat position. "It's like he is still nudging me. Helping me when I am stuck, showing me new paths, new clues and ways of thought. It is like his soul is still here, the only thing wrong with that is, I want him to be truly here."

"Akane…" He cocked his head to the side, "I can't help you if you're just going to tell me half the story."

She stood for the moment, suddenly she found it uncomfortable to sit. Her mind went from being exhausted to being completely jittering on adrenaline. She looked at one of the paintings in Saiga's room, a painting of a crusade. It was wondrously painted, probably costing millions of yen. She found herself at peace with the idea of seeing the bloodshed and silent yells of the victims faces, though she felt guilty after she realised her emotions.

"The case and Kogami are connected in one way or another, am I correct?" He asked suddenly, again snapping her from a day dream.

She nodded, "Correct. Sphinx has contacted me, giving me footage of Kogami stood outside of a run down, wooden built bar. It's snowing heavily, and believe it or not he is smoking his cigarette without care in the world. It was him, at first I didn't believe it, but it was him."

"And how does this connect?"

"Sphinx wants me to play a game with them, find Kogami, or the law will. I have to find Kogami before them, and I have no idea how large my window is or will be. They've given me one clue, that wherever he lives now, 'smells like pine.' I looked up places in Japan where Pine forests are located, and it came up with results that there are indeed places where Pine forests still originate." She sighed, catching her breath. "They are circulating several towns that are off of Sibyl's grid. Living in mostly pre-sibyl set conditions. It is well known to be the place where convicts will run off too for a place of peace and quiet for a short amount of time before moving onwards to their next destination." She crossed her arms, as if she was suddenly cold. In reality, she was sweating. "Question being, which one is Kogami in? I have narrowed down two of them. Snowville and Pinewood."

Saiga sipped his coffee, she wasn't looking at him but could hear his slurp. He thought for a moment, obviously thinking through everything she had just said to him. He let out a small gasp of breath, standing and walking a little closer to her. "I have books on such towns." He surprised her, he moved silently to the other side of the room where he picked up a book from his well organised shelf. He flicked through it for a moment before tapping a page, "Snowville doesn't have snow that settles on its grass…Ironically. The forest is too dense for the snow to reach it, so there wouldn't be snow if he were in that town. The video was your clue. He is in Pinewood. Or at least, that is my best bet."

She suddenly did not feel well… _He was in Pinewood…_

_He was in Pinewood. _

_He was alive and in Pinewood. _

Akane had to sit down, her breath was laboured and the sweat on her temple dripped onto her hand. She felt unbelievably hot in that room, she swallowed hard and tried to control her breathing. "C-Can I borrow that book, Mr Saiga?"

He gave it to her, a worried glance headed in her direction. "Miss Tsunemori? Are you okay?"

"I-I need to r-rest." She mumbled, blinking several times. Exhausted. She was so tried that it hurt. "I-I need…re…" She didn't finish, the next thing she knew, her head had hit the floor and then blackness.

* * *

><p>Ginoza had gotten the call about Tsunemori's condition at four in the morning, he groggily answered his mobile to Mika's shrilled voice telling him to get down to the hospital immediately and to wake Sho on the way. He showered quickly, throwing on yesterday's suit and popped a mint in his mouth to cover the smell of alcohol. He walked down the stairs to Sho's room, he answered after several knocks.<p>

"U-Um y-yeah?" Sho was still half asleep, he spotted Ginoza and straightened his back. He had love bites on his neck and chest, and he was only in his boxers. It surprised Ginoza, wondering who he could've slept with. He always pitched the kid as gay, or at least too quiet to ever gain the attention of women. It was when he saw a familiar coat on his rack that he sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically.

"Get dressed, we're needed at the hospital. Akane is unconscious." He ordered firmly before wondering down the hall.

_So Rheya has gotten to Sho… what is that girl up too? _

Sho woke up Rheya from her sleep, she slowly got out of bed and said she was going to shower. He mentioned how quick they were needed, but she waved him off. "Akane doesn't need me there, bitch-face Mika would've said, 'enforcers and Rheya' were needed, if that were the case. She didn't, if Akane needs me, then she'll call me." She smirked, a silent 'I am not one of you guys,' hung in the air.

Sho gulped and nodded, "I wonder how she became unconscious…"

"Well, in my best bet, she overworked and fainted. She hardly eats these days, there isn't much time to do so. She's probably just a little anaemic and fainted from it." She mumbled, taking off her bra and panties. "Now, are you going to join me in this shower, or does duty really call?"

He blushed vividly, "I…Shower? With you?"

"Yeah," she giggled, "final answer, yes or no?"

He bit his lip, "As much as I would love too… I _should_ probably see if big sis is okay."

She walked to him and kissed him softly, "Then go be a cop, Sho. I'll be here if anyone needs me, is that okay?"

"Sure." He said pulling on his jacket, "U-um thanks… for last night." He was half way out of the door, "I'll see you later! I love you!" He blurted, blushing in the elevator by himself when he realised what he said.

Meanwhile, Rheya stood in the shower smirking to herself. "Being thanked for sex, and told that he loves me…wow. There's a first for everything." She touched her burning cheeks, realising she was blushing.

_You're falling dangerously into the enemy lines, Rheya, stay sharp._

* * *

><p><strong>I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Like I said, I'll have a re-re-read tomorrow when I have slept. HAPPY NEW YEAR! Hope you guys had a good time at Christmas.. or whatever holiday you do follow, or if you don't then I hope you had a good time anyway! <strong>

**What is Rheya up too? Who is M? Who is C? Sho got laid?! AKANE WHY YOU NO SLEEP, NOW LOOK WHAT HAPPENED! **

**I will see you next time! Remember to Review, I love reading your comments. It makes me happy. :3 TTFN!**


	7. Strawberry string

**Welcome to chapter 7!**

* * *

><p>Mika tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for any news. Getting a call in the middle of the night from the hospital that your boss had collapsed whilst talking with Saiga, was something she wasn't at all expecting. And yet, even though she was mad that her boss allowed herself too get to that state, she had to admit that she was worried for her as well. Her Psycho-Pass was worrying, it always was. How did that woman work herself to the point of fainting, and her Psycho-Pass still not reach past thirty-two point three?<p>

How can someone only reach that point, and then hours later, it go back down to twenty-eight point six? What was her secret?

Mika had to confess, she was slightly jealous that her boss could so easily go from breaking point to normality in a matter of hours. As odd and envious as it was, Mika was enthralled by it as well. She hoped that her Psycho-Pass was that strong, it would make everything a lot easier.

The hospital smelt like bleach and sweat. Mika wished the news of her boss's recovery would come quicker. She needed some air. She let out a discouraging sigh before looking over her shoulder to her fellow enforcers. All of them had come to the hospital when she had called them. She wasn't expecting such an outcome, she honestly thought they wouldn't care. Maybe they were just following her shrilled orders, or maybe they really did care for the short Inspector who was behind the two doors in front of them.

Ginoza was looking to the ceiling fan, his eyes not budging from the spot. He was trying not to worrying too much, Akane was a strong individual. Stronger than anyone who was waiting for her to wake up outside her hospital room. She survived a lot of mind-destroying incidents in her few short years in the M.W.P.S.B, she could survive this, mentally and psychically.

But a blood boiling question seemed to spread through all of them as they waiting patiently. What caused this? Sure the new case was mind boggling in many senses of the word, but it wasn't so bad to faint due to it. Something or someone must've caused this to happen.

_Could it be about him? _Ginoza thought to himself, hearing Akane's room door slide open to reveal a nurse behind it. Everyone's attention went to her, Ginoza's question fizzling into the air.

Mika pounced on the nurse as soon as she saw her, her finger pointing into the middle aged woman's face. Addling her with questions. "How is she? Is her Psycho-Pass still low? Are there any injuries that need to be specified?" The nurse blinked and raised a brow and then smiled.

"Miss Tsunemori will be perfectly fine, she is just overly exhausted. My bet is that she hadn't slept well in a few days. She is running a fever as well. I want to keep her in for a while to see if the fever leaves, but she should be perfectly well in a few days. Albeit, I believe she should take time off work to rest. Stress is not good on a Psycho-Pass, after all."

Ginoza raised a brow, "Tsunemori has never taken a day off in her days working for the M. W. P. S. B. No wonder she's tired."

Mika bit her lip, "I'll contact Kasei, see what her decision is on Tsunemori possible getting time off to fully recover."

Sho interjected softly, "But surely, with this case, she should keep working? Without her, I am certain that…"

"We'll be fine without her help." Mika snapped. Walking off with her phone, obviously to contact Kasei immediately.

Yayoi spoke through the sudden awkwardness of the situation, "Can we see her?"

"Yes, I bet she'd like some company." The nurse nodded, letting them pass.

_Tsunemori will find a way to help us even if she isn't at work. She won't take a day off with a case like this. _Ginoza realised as they walked, _Even if Mika gets Kasei to agree. We will still have Tsunemori on hand. She'd make sure of it. _

Tsunemori looked small in her hospital bed, she was sat up with her legs crossed. She was holding a book in her hands. Her head had a bandage around it, and her left eye was bruised from her fall. But otherwise, she looked just like Tsunemori always looked. Determined.

Sho was the first to speak, his worried voice filling the room. "Big sis? Are you okay?"

She smiled thankfully to him, her eyes still tired. "I'll be fine. I just need some sleep and then I can function again." She bit her lip, "Did you guys really all come here for me? I am sorry, I didn't mean to worry you all."

Ginoza sighed, sitting down. "Mika is contacting Kasei as we speak, apparently the nurse thinks you could benefit from a few days off. A vacation, if you like." He eyed her, "Personally, I think Kasei will say yes. After all, she cares if you go down. If you go down, we all do."

She opened her mouth for a moment and sat back in her bed, as if to contemplate the situation. Ginoza was shocked that she was even doing that. He thought that Tsunemori would rip her drip out of her arm and march to Kasei herself to beg to be kept on the case. But what she did instead was cross her arms and bow her head. "Well, that seems fair to me. After all, I did faint. I am showing signs of fatigue that isn't very healthy for my Psycho-Pass. The only logical situation would to be taken off the case for the time being." She looked up at them, "However…" She smirked, "If I am taken off the case, then I'll need your help to make sure that I am still in the loop."

Ginoza found a smile, he knew that Tsunemori wouldn't back down that easily. She was just thinking of what she could do before doing it. Simple tactic evaluation. It was no good to go into this with all guns blazing. In reality, this sort of thing needed proper analysis.

Shion smirked, "So, you think that you can still do the job, even if off duty for the time being?"

"Yes," Tsunemori replied without a heart beat of a delay. Her voice was strong, her eyes stronger. They bore into everyone in the room and then her eyes drifted to Sho. "Where's Rheya?"

"Um…" Sho blushed, looking to the floor.

Ginoza sighed, "Rheya is still at Sho's apartment as far as we're aware. Do you want me to contact her, Sho, or should you?"

He raised a brow, "Contact her for what, exactly?"

Yayoi stepped in, "If we are to do this, keep Tsunemori in the loop whilst she is off the case, we would be breaking several laws within the M.W.P.S.B rulings. However, I don't give a shit about the laws. Tsunemori needs to help us, but also take time away from the office. Therefore we need to hide our actions as fast as we're doing them, so we need Rheya to create a wall between her and Shion's emails and internet connection from selected time periods and websites to Tsunemori's laptop or tablet device, you will have to pick one, as too many devices will make it harder to control."

"Says who?" A voice said from the door, causing them all to look in that direction. Rheya was in fresh clothes, and her hair was tied in a long braid. She waltzed to Tsunemori and placed a box of chocolates on the table. "Sorry I'm late, I had to sort some personal matters out." She rubbed the corner of her eye, "And to get you those." She smiled tiredly, Tsunemori could smell Sho's shower gel on her skin. "A wall?" She looked to them all, "Why's that?"

Yayoi explained the situation, Rheya nodded slowly, putting a finger to her lip. "Cool, I can do that. Though as Yayoi stated, it would be a lot easier for me to put a wall between two objects rather than three. So pick one device, it'll save time and strength." She waved the air and smiled, "What're you going to do in the meantime of being away?"

Tsunemori put her thumb to her lip and shrugged, crossing her arms. "I might go on a short vacation. Not too far away, but far enough to look like I am taking this leave seriously to Kasei." She looked to the door, "And to Mika."

They all nodded, approving of her choice. Rheya glared at them all, "If anyone talks of this plan to anyone else, I'll put child porn on your laptops. This is serious, ok?" She crossed her arms, "I have a feeling that the murderer is getting itchy to go again. It's been a while."

And as if on cue, Mika sprung into the wall out of breath. She bent over herself trying to catch her breath, her hand on her chest. "A-another mur-murder!" She shrieked, "At a school!"

The reaction was of shock, Tsunemori bit her lip and looked to Yayoi. "Go to the school, see if it matches the past killings, if it does, you know what to do." She smiled reassuringly, feeling a pang of guilt that she wouldn't be able to do anything to help them.

Shion raised a brow, her eyes sad. "A child?"

"No, thank god!" Mika sighed, gaining her breath back already. "A teacher," she finished.

"Go," Tsunemori said, picking up the box of chocolate and smiling at them. "I'll be here resting."

As they left, Tsunemori opened the box of chocolates and inside was an array of expensive chocolate, in almost every possible flavour. Smiling, Tsunemori took one and bit into its crispy wafer centre in pleasure. She picked up the note and smirked, relaxing into her bed and sighed.

**Thought you would need this, enjoy. **

**Rheya.**

* * *

><p>The victim's name was Naru Ishikawa, a thirty-six year old High School teacher in the High School that Akane used to attend. She had searched it up just out of plain curiosity, not that she was being creepy or anything. She tapped away on her tablet, looking up anything she could on Ishikawa's past and present with not much avail. The guy was pretty clean. One or two parking tickets, divorced three times, adulterer, had several children from his mistresses that were scattered across Japan, but nothing that screamed, 'sinner'.<p>

_Or at least, not the sin we're looking at… _

Rheya and Shion both agreed that at first glance that Naru's past would indicate that the killing would be linked to the sin 'lust'. However, the crime scene clearly stated in quite large lettering that he wasn't lustful enough to be killed for it. Instead, this man was apparently severely a 'sloth'.

Mika tapped her foot impatiently, Shion glared at her for a moment. That woman had been tapping her foot consistently all day, and it was starting to get on everyone's nerves. Rheya stared at her, stood up from the chair she had been sitting on and walked to her. "Do you have Lymes Disease?" She asked casually, "Because it seems that you have a restless limb problem, which could be explained by Lymes Disease." She smirked to herself, "Been swimming in Sibyl unapproved swimming pools lately?"

"Excuse me!" Mika fumed, she stopped tapping. "I am just annoyed, okay? I understand that these murders are always planned to the minute detail." She sighed, "However, how the heck is the guy 'sloth' and not 'lust'?" She gestured to the corpse. "He cheated on all of his wives, has a lot of children roaming around the country and has also apparently had several sexual relationships with female staff in this school." She sighed, "What is the killer trying to tell us?"

Rheya smiled sternly, as if she was trying not to snap at her. "Things aren't as simplistic as they seem," she managed. She walked closer to the body, "The question we should be asking is, 'why choose "sloth"?" She asked, "Not 'why not choose 'lust'?" She cocked her head to the side, "What did he do to be classed as 'sloth'?"

Yayoi put a finger to her lips, "What if something happened within the school?"

Shion looked up from her laptop, "Odd you asked, I just cross examined his name with the school's name, and guess what came up first?"

"Let me guess," Ginoza said in a grumble, "a sexual assault charge?"

Shion nodded, "The child apparently came to Ishikawa to ask for advice on the matter, in court however, he apparently told the court that his student was lying, therefore the charges were dropped. The child was murdered four months later, though she had switched schools by then."

"So of course, Ishikawa wasn't accused of mistreating a sexual assault charge, since he was no longer her teacher." Rheya said softly. "So that might be the main reason as to why the killer chose 'sloth'. Because having sex is one thing, letting a child die because you were too bored to listen to them in the first place is worse." She shook her head.

Mika sighed deeply, "It all seems so simple, like it isn't as well thought out as the previous deaths."

Rheya narrowed her eyes, "He or she seemed to want us to look at the lettering on the wall." She stared back at it, the letters were large and the blood was still slightly damp.

Ginoza squinted at it, "Meanwhile the blood on the victim is dry… he bled out ages ago." He walked to where Rheya was and crossed his arms, "I may know what they're trying to tell us."

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Rheya smirked.

Ginoza looked over to Sho, "Get a drone to take a DNA reading of the blood, and make it snappy."

Sho nodded, operating the drone to take a swab and generalise the DNA of the blood on the wall. Mika watched patiently, her eyes curious, her expression other wise blank. The drone took ten minutes before it pinged and told them the answer that they had all been dreading.

"_Examination indicated that the blood does not match the victims, instead the belongs to Yuno Morrigan, aged thirteen years, diseased due to murder under one year ago._" The Drone told them proudly, completely the opposite of what it should've sounded like in the current situation.

Ginoza looked to Rheya, "Your intuition on the matter?"

"Hmm…" She sighed, "I don't know right now. It is one thing putting the blood on the wall, and it is another thing to discover what they meant by putting the blood on the wall. It is as if they want us to delve further into the life of the victim and the teacher. It isn't just about him… it is about her."

Tougane lit a cigarette, "It is good to assume then, that we should be searching up the life and death of Yuno Morrigan?"

"It is my best bet," Rheya replied stiffly.

Whilst everyone talked of a plan, Rheya took out her phone and quickly typed a message to her laptop at home through a throw away email. She took a picture of the body, message, and made a note to write up any notes spoken through this investigation and send it to Akane as soon as she was able.

Mika cleared her throat, luckily not to Rheya, she hardly glanced in her direction. "I will contact Kasei of the situation and see where she thinks we should move from there. In the meantime, search up anything about Yuno Morrigan and re-examine the evidence we have so far." She sighed, getting out her own phone and muttering. "I have a date to tell Akane that Kasei has formally signed her off the case until she comes back from her vacation leave." She clapped her phone shut, "Get to it, you know what to do."

As she left, Rheya felt an unanimous yet silent 'we know exactly what we have to do' fill the room.

* * *

><p>She swung her arms that were beside her, skipping to her seat before crossing her legs. She rummaged through the little paper bag she had gotten her hands on, picking out the candy she had brought. Her mouth was happy with the strawberry flavoured string that melted on her tongue. She giggled excitedly, munching away on the candy piece by piece.<p>

It was when she was mid-way through her treat, that someone sat down beside her. She blinked and looked to her side, sure enough, the figure was someone she knew. She pouted and looked away, "Go away."

"Why?" He sighed, "You know where she is, and I need to know where she is."

"I don't like you, go away." She mumbled, "You're making the candy taste bad."

He smirked, "Shame, I thought we could be friends."

She raised a brow, "Men like you do not have friends very often. More like a fuck-and-go… really." She shrugged.

He bellowed with laughter, "To hear such an innocent sounding individual say, 'fuck' is somewhat amusing." He the sucked on his lip for a second, he reached and picked out a strawberry string and put it in his mouth, smiling. "I need to know where she is, please tell me."

"No. Even if I do know where she is, I wouldn't tell man like you."

"Man like me?" He chuckled, standing, "You'll need my help one day girly, and when you do, you better use correct grammar. Remember, we're in Japan, not your home country."

"Fuck you! Is that good grammar!?" She yelled, he all but laughed it off and nodded. Waving her goodbye before walking slowly away. She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, the candy tasted foul now. She threw it away and sighed, getting out her phone and pressing the dial tone for her, 'M' contact.

"Ryuu is looking for you, I do not want him wasting my time anymore. Answer his calls!" She snapped before the person on the other end could answer her.

* * *

><p>Once Mika left the room, Akane didn't have to wait too long to have Rheya slide into the room unnoticed and walk to her bed. The girl looked a little flustered, but other wise perfectly well. She smiled to Akane and handed her another box. "I brought you your tablet, I modified the firewall and email address so Sibyl cannot see what you search up, or what it receives from my computer and laptop. I also made a document explaining today's events for you." She sighed, sitting down. She looked tired. "Where're you going to go?"<p>

Akane bit her lip, she knew that Rheya would ask. The girl's life was to know what people were doing, and she knew that she would just hack her way into the truth if she didn't say anything truthful to her. So she decided to play the half-truth-card, and just tell her the outline…

"North," she sighed. "I have an old friend up there who I haven't seen in a while, she'll hook me up with a bed." She smiled, "It'll be nice to see her."

"I bet," Rheya muttered.

"What about you? What're you going to do while I am gone alongside work and other things?" Akane smirked, Rheya stared at her and then smirked knowingly.

She shrugged, "Sho seems to admire me, I may just stay at his place for a while."

"No boyfriend to worry about, then?"

"No," she replied instantly. "A pestering ex-boyfriend, but nothing serious." She chuckled, "Sho is a nice guy, I hope to stay in touch once the case is over."

Akane sighed deeply, "Just treat him well, he's been through a lot."

"Haven't we all?" Rheya said, almost sharply. She stood, "I have to go, I am exhausted." She picked up her bag, "Enjoy the read." She nodded to the tablet.

Akane nodded shortly, "Keep me posted."

Rheya just waved behind her and walked out of the room, just as unnoticed as before. That girl was a shadow, and it worried Akane deeply. _Shadows are unseen, especially if they latch onto you…_

* * *

><p>He laid lazily in his bed, his eyes tired and head pounding from the late night prior. He hadn't drunk that much in a while, and all he could remember were several women trying to test their luck and swoon their way to his bed. Yet he had drunkenly declined them all, and someone brought him home. Someone he didn't know. Yet, all they had done was make him a coffee and a slice of toast. Leaving it on his bedside table, and pushing him on the bed where he slept instantly. He woke up with them gone, nothing missing, as far as he could tell. Maybe the person was just plainly a good samaritan. An odd assurance in a town full of escaped convicts.<p>

He lit a cigarette, sitting up and forcing the sense of spinning from his head too leave. He sighed out the smoke from his lips, and rubbed his tear ducts. Picking up the cold and still full coffee mug, he sipped from it happily, too lazy to move from his spot on his comfortable bed.

The caffeine did the trick, he was eventually able to stand from his bed without having to throw up. He made a fresh breakfast before changing to go for a run, he ran for a solid hour and a half before retiring back to his cabin. He panted heavily, stretched and doing some chin-ups on the bar in his kitchen doorway, and finally he cooled down with some push ups. He showered, made more coffee and lit a cigarette after changing into some slacks.

He checked his mail that he had put on the table when he came back from his run, opening them up and scanning through them. Bills, Bills and more Bills. He checked his bank account and saw he could pay it off straight away, so he did. It wasn't until he stood from his seat and went back into his bedroom for a quick nap, that he saw a letter sitting just underneath his bed.

Something he hadn't noticed this morning in his weak state, obviously.

He picked up the letter and examined the envelope. It was unsigned. The envelope was slightly blue in colour, and smelt vaguely of lemon balm…

He opened it up and a few photographs slid out from the paper, he narrowed his eyes suddenly. He felt a pain in his gut, a knowing pain that told him what was promptly in front of him.

He slowly picked up the photographs and moved back to the table to look at them, another cigarette was lit. He shakily unfolded his letter, and read it slowly. His stomach clenched. _Oh god no… _

**Miss Tsunemori is on the move… looks as if she's packing winter attire… I wonder why? **

**Seems she's coming to you, it would be a shame if left before she came. Don't break her little heart anymore- we wouldn't want that, right?**

**Sphinx. **

_Tsunemori… _He winced and put his head into his hands. _Why the fuck are you doing this?_

He picked up one of the photographs, sure enough, through a window, a half naked Akane Tsunemori was packing a rucksack with winter clothing. Thick jeans, sweaters, cardigans, thick socks, fluffy slippers and sturdy snow boots. He looked at the other picture, she was in a towel, the towel was around her shoulders, just covering her breasts. She was wearing some kind of booty shorts, her legs looking toned and strong, but not enough to look odd against her petite frame. He flipped the picture over, sure enough a typed out note was there.

**I thought you'd like this picture. **

Grinding his teeth together, he spat out, "God fucking damn it!"

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry that it has been so long since I have updated, college has literally been a mess, and final pieces needed to be handed in everywhere in the same week... So I had like 4 final pieces to finish by the friday just gone. So i am SORRY! but here it is, some feels, some mystery and a dead dude who is an asshole at the same time. <strong>

**ANYONE WATCH THE PSYCHO-PASS FILM TRAILER AND FREAK THE FUCK OUT!? I DID! I literally had a mini-heart attack!**

**(Pls let there be a Shikane moment in there somewhere?!)**


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